Among the British team’s drivers, Josh McErlean and Martins Sesks in particular had shown promising pace on the gravel rally’s opening stage on Friday morning. But things quickly unraveled on the second stage.
First, Grégoire Munster damaged the rear suspension of his Ford Puma. Soon after, McErlean ran wide, hit a bank, and was forced to retire. And as the final blow, Latvian driver Martins Sesks rolled his car heavily in a high-speed section.
All of this happened within just a few minutes.
I had to go and meet somebody, and when I left, it was going okay. Then I saw, just as I was leaving, that Greg had a bad split and something was wrong. I was on my way to the meeting when I got a message saying Josh had stopped. And as I sat down at the table, I got another message saying Martins was on his roof,” M-Sport team principal Richard Millener recounted.
“So, it was an eventful two minutes.”
M-Sport had gone through a thorough preparation phase for Sardinia following Rally Portugal. Part of the team travelled directly from Portugal to test in Sardinia, while the rest rebuilt the cars from scratch.
Weeks of hard work were undone in the blink of an eye.
“It’s frustrating and disappointing. It does make you a little emotional, considering the amount of effort the whole team puts into this and how much work they’re doing with the resources we have – just to be here and help these younger guys move forward in their careers,” Millener said.
For Greg and Josh, two small mistakes with big consequences. Those are lessons they need to learn, I guess. But having all three in trouble on the same stage – that’s a tough one for the team to take. Still, we have to deal with it and take a moment to process everything.”
Millener estimated that McErlean’s and Munster’s cars could be repaired in time for Saturday’s stages. Sesks’ rally, however, may already be over after his dramatic crash.
“I’m not so confident at the moment about Martins’ car. It has a lot of damage. We’ve got another rally coming up very soon, and 99% of the time we’re using the same chassis. So we’re really going to have to inspect that one closely. I wouldn’t be super confident about it right now, sadly,” Millener admitted.
