Jon Armstrong explains the crash he had in Stage 8 of Rally Chile saying admitting that it is disappointing since his goal was to have a clean rally last weekend.
Armstrong was fighting with Esapekka Lappi and Josh McErlean for the seventh place overall while he and his compatriot were equal and shared the 7th place at the end of Stage 4. In fact, Armstrong managed to climb into the sixth position overall at the end of Stage 7 where Thierry Neuville rolled his Hyundai i20N Rally1 and McErlean got a rear left tyre damage. In total, he gained two positions after Stage 7, but the Irishman made a serious mistake in Stage 8 when he understeered and touched a bank resulting in rolling his Ford Puma Rally1 at 11,7Km into SS8. He and Shane Byrne completed that stage after siven minutes, butthey were forced to retire on the road section before the start of Stage 9 as there was a water pressure warning. M-Sport Ford mechanics fixed their car and they restarted under the SuperRally regulations on Sunday after having received many time penalties for their retirement. Finally, the Irishman started second on the road on the final day of Rally Chile and finished ahead of Takamoto Katsuta on the overall classification.
"It wasn't our goal to have Saturday end up like that, that's for sure, we really wanted to have a clean event", Armstrong said.
"Friday was tricky because of the wet weather, so it was pleasing to get through that cleanly.
"Then on Saturday's second stage, I thought I remembered a corner quite well, but it was shorter than I expected before it tightened, so I thought I had more time to slow the car.
"We ran wide, touched the bank, rolled and damaged the front of the car, and had to Super Rally.
"It's disappointing because there's a lot of effort and motivation from everyone, and the aim now is to have more clean rallies.
"We know the pace is good whenever we get into a good rhythm, it's just about being able to put it all together, and we're working towards that".
Photo Credits: M-Sport
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