Freddy Loix and Sven Smeets had a mixed day and a progrssive morning was flattened somewhat by a difficult afternoon. They made changes to the suspension set-up of their Accent WRC³ at the start of the leg in preparation for the 43.69km Granberget stage. Preferring the settings with which he finished leg 1 however, Loix reverted to that set-up before leaving service for the following group of two stages.
The Belgian climbed to seventh position by special stage eight but Colin McRae (Citroen) powered his way back from an overnight position of 13th to steal Freddy’s seventh position from him. Admitting to a few bad decisions on the afternoon’s set of stages, the Belgian found it difficult to set competitive times but confidently defended his ninth position nonetheless.
Freddy said: “I made a big mistake on tyre choice this afternoon, especially for the last two stages and I also made a mistake by putting the corner lights on – whenever we touched a snow bank it just took so much speed off the car.”
Looking ahead to the final day of the event, Freddy added: “I’m not going to make any major changes this evening. The handling is ok but I will be worried if the conditions get worse – if the gravel comes through, our lack of power will be a handicap. The best thing for us will be a hard frost but we’ll give it all we have tomorrow anyway.”
(
Bron: info@hyundaiwrc.com )
foto's van de Belgen (
Bron: rally-action.com)
Bob Colsoul:
Freddy Loix:
Bernard Munster:
