At the end of the Rally of Turkey, which Loeb won, the whole WRC circus was faced with the problem of getting of getting home. With Citroen & Ford based on the other side of Europe, & with planes out of order, both teams faced the huge challange of getting home from Turkey. To compound the problems, the teams had to prepare their cars for the Rally of New Zealand & fly them out by the middle of next week.
The lorry drivers, who decided to take a boat from Greece to Turkey in an attempt to shorten the road distance, were stranded at the port in Greece when the boat was delayed by several hours.
Citroen made it back to their French base by Tuesday, but Ford only made it back on Friday.
After a 70-hour bus ride, the one thing the mechanics diddnt want to do was get stuck into a car as soon as they got back to Cockermouth, M-Sports base. On the plus side, the mechanics had a sceneic journey, taking in Bulgaria, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Holland, Belguim & finally France.
Mikko Hirvonen & Jarmo Lethinen got a lift with some mates in Bulgaria, who drove them home to Finland. Ford Technical Director Christian Loriaux caught one of the few flights from Istanbul to Nice, drove to Calais & then on to Cockermouth. Pirelli technicians went from Turkey to Italy by bus. Petter Solberg took a 72-hour bus ride from Turkey to Norway.
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