(Part 2)
Behind the Norwegian, Dani Sordo took sixth in what was a near dream début for the new MINI John Cooper Works WRC. Aside from a small sensor issue on Day 2, the car ran faultlessly throughout the rally, showing what might be coming in the months ahead.
"I am happy to finish, the car is good and so is the team.” said Sordo, whose last rally was Wales at the end of last year. “I think the weekend was very positive and after many kilometres on the rally we have learnt more about the car, which is important. Also the team has taken a lot of data and are now working hard for the future. In the fast parts of the stages we were close to the top times. The positive is the chassis is really good and it is really nice to drive on the fast road. If you have a good chassis this is most important."
Dave Richards, Team Principal, said: "I think we have shown the performance of the car. We have proved what we can do and I think it has set the mark and set the standard. I wish Kris could have carried on the way he was in the early stages. If he had carried on like that I think we would have been in a very strong position, but that is life, this is testing and we are learning as we go along. All signs are really encouraging and we have no real reliability problems at all that we are concerned about. We have to take a lot of positives from the event.”
In the other MINI, Kris Meeke was holding an extremely impressive fourth after SS2, but a stuck throttle on the next stage sent the MINI off the road and into the undergrowth. He re-joined on Day 2, only to retire again with a split water pipe. The team took the decision not to re-enter the car on Sunday under SupeRally regulations.
He said: "We said before the rally we wanted to see the speed of the car and we showed we have entered at a very good level in terms of speed. Obviously Dani’s car has worked faultlessly and he has had very good reliability. I have had a minor technical glitch and it appeared on both days and we didn’t want to take the risk running again today [Sunday]. We know the solution for that but we can’t do it this weekend but we will put that right in the coming weeks. Everyone is very positive so we just have to take it from here and go forward."
The MINI World Rally Team were then awarded the Abu Dhabi Spirit Of The Rally award.
The rapid Ott Tanak took seventh and Juho Hanninen took eighth. Matthew Wilson finished ninth after his Day 1 mechanical problems. Nasser Al-Attiyah took the final World Championship point with tenth in his Fiesta S2000.
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