Rd.5 of Finnish Rally Championship was held in Kouvola, located in southern Finland.
J.Salo has gone through numbers of testing to ensure the best setting possible for this round. He also comments "The car seems to be very stable, even when going over multiple crests with unpredictable landing point". There are high hopes for his newly tuned car.
DAY1
The first stage covering 20.46km happens to be the longest stage of all, and J.Salo comes out almost 4 sec. ahead of J.Ketomaa. He was off to a great start, but in SS2, he hits a large rock and punctures his rear left tire and damages one of the suspension arms. Difficulties continued in SS3, when he spun out and lost some time due to the damage received in the previous stage. By the end of SS3, his position went down to 7th spot with 28.6 sec. gap behind the leader. He pushes hard and jumps back to 4th place, but the current leader was still 30 sec. ahead of J.Salo.
"On the second stage I was forced to drive five kilometers with flat tire and lost 10 seconds. Spinning on the stage three took 15 seconds more. Without those the situation would have been very different" J.Salo calculated. "Naturally the problems in the beginning of the rally affected to my feelings."
DAY2
Toward the end of the day, a fierce battle unfolded to clinch for 2nd place, by J.Salo, J.Ketomaki, and K.Sohlberg. In the last two stages; SS8, and SS9, J.Salo sets fastest time and finishes just 0.5 sec. ahead of K.Sohlberg to take home 2nd place this round.
Rd.6 of Finnish Rally Championship will be held in Kerava which is also located in southern Finland. Currently, J.Salo is positioned 2nd in the standings. There are 2 more rounds remaining and we wish J.Salo and his crew the very best, to win the championship. |
