Rally Mexico Results

by Marc Greig under News, Motorsport, WRC on 12 Mar 2014 02:36:39 AM12 Mar 2014

Rally Mexico Results4

The Rally of Mexico has been run and won and again the winners were Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia who beat home teammates Jari-Matti Latvala/Miikka Anttila by 1:12.6. Big news for the Hyundai team with Thierry Neuville/Nicolas Gilsoul piloting their Hyundai i20 WRC to third place 5:28.6 behind Ogier and Ingrassia.

In fact for the first time this season both the Hyundai's managed to get to the finish of the rally with Chris Atkinson/Stéphane Prévot getting their car home in 7th place after a difficult start to the rally.

Actually Thierry Neuville/Nicolas Gilsoul nearly didn't make the finish line on Sunday after their i2-'s radiator sprung a leak. Lucky for them they had a large bottle of Corona in the car that was meant for celebration. Cue the car pulled over on the side of the road being topped up with beer.

Neuville said: “We are incredibly happy to have scored this podium result and especially in a rally as demanding as Mexico. We kept our heads down and focused on delivering the best results we could in each stage without going over the limit. Our objective has always been just to bring the car home and finish the rally, so to take a podium is a really nice bonus for the team, who have worked so hard. Having the first-hand experience of rally competition is so valuable for the team and the data we have gathered this weekend will be extremely useful in further development of the Hyundai i20 WRC and the team overall. We are delighted with this result and to have exceeded our targets. It’s been a real team effort and I’m proud of what we’ve achieved, even if there is much more to come.”

On finishing his first rally in over a year and scoring points for his team Atkinson said: “It’s not been an easy weekend but what a way to end it for the team to celebrate a two-car finish and our debut podium. Mexico is a tough rally and I have had to deal with a few issues during the event. We had a suspension problem on Friday which put us down the order and then we had to run early in the subsequent stages which meant a lot of slippery conditions. We had to play things sensibly and drive cautiously to achieve our objective of finishing the event, which I am pleased we did comfortably. We made some improvements during the rally and I’m pretty satisfied with seventh overall and more importantly to finish. This experience will be really useful for the team to improve the car for the rest of the year. I look forward to returning to the cockpit of the Hyundai i20 WRC later in the season and thank the team for all their support this weekend. Everyone deserves the podium result today.”