The team principal of M-Sport Ford, Richard Millener, apologizes to Pierre-Loubet for his retirement from Acropolis Rally yesterday as he is aware of his driver's anticipation to deliver a good result in Greece.
The Corsican driver was forced to retire before the start of Stage 2 at Acropolis Rally as he faced some issues starting his Puma in parc ferme and had to stop in the liaison section. M-Sport Ford confirmed that Loubet suffered from a water pump issue which affected his competition in Greece as he will not continue for the rest of the weekend, but it must be mentioned that Ott Tanak faced the same issues as his teammate at the midday tyre fitting zone. Finally, Loubet was hoping for a good result there as he managed to steal the Acropolis lead from Sebastien Loeb in 2022 and this was his first time leading a WRC round while he claimed his first stage wins in his career.
"We have had an issue with the water pump it would seem on both cars and it’s really frustrating and we feel really sorry for Pierre", Millener said.
"This is one of the events he chose this year to focus on and he’s not performed as he’d hoped himself a couple times this year and had got himself really motivated for this rally and didn’t even have a chance to do a gravel stage.
"We can only apologize to him and we all feel really terrible for letting him down, effectively.
"It’s been a pretty tough day, but OK Ott, a couple of stage wins after the boys worked really hard in the tire fitting zone with very limited resources to get things going was fantastic to see.
"But stage wins vs overall positions is never quite the same.
"It’s been tough".
Source: DirtFish.com
Photo Credits: M-Sport
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