Thierry Neuville describes the great weekend he had at Rally Sweden despite the fact that he missed the Hyundai's pre-event test and is referring to the moment he had in Powerstage.
The Belgian driver was in sixth place overall at the end of Friday, but he managed to gain three positions and to be third overall at the end of Saturday afternoon as he set the fastest time in four from seven stages resulting in overtaking Elfyn Evans and Kalle Rovanpera on the overall classification. On Sunday, Hyundai Motorsport gave team orders and Craig Breen checked one-minute late at the sto control of Powerstage which means that he took a 10-second time penalty and dropped behind Neuville for 0,5 before the start of PS. However, the last one had a spin in PS resulting in losing some seconds there and eventually finished third overall as Breen was not informed by his teammate's incident.
"To be honest, I didn’t come here to talk about tactics, I wanted to talk about our great weekend we had which we didn’t expect, to be honest", Neuville said at the post-event conference.
"We came here, I was sick before the rally, I missed my pre-event test which I actually handed over to Craig.
"I started very difficult on shakedown, I was still feeling bad.
"Friday morning, a difficult loop, running second on the road we knew we had a huge disadvantage.
"We were able to keep close to the leaders, only 30 seconds adrift which gave us the opportunity to have a better road position on Saturday and fight very hard, setting four fastest times out of seven and catching back third position on Saturday evening.
"Sunday was all about defending it.
"I think at the end of Saturday my tyre strategy and also this morning made a difference.
"I knew on Sunday morning that Kalle would be fast anyhow, the first pass conditions they have always been very strong, but I also knew on the second pass conditions we could be faster without taking too much risk and taking care of the tyres, and that’s what we did.
"But then suddenly on the Power Stage I just did a set-up change and they didn’t work out, and obviously I didn’t feel as confident as I felt on all the other stages and messed it up in the Power Stage.
"We missed a great opportunity there but that’s part of the game".
Photo Credits: Hyundai
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