Thierry Neuville admits that he did not expect that he would be able to fight for the win and to finish in second position in Sweden while he is already focused on working hard with Hyundai for Rally Croatia.
The Belgian driver was leading Rally Sweden at the end of Friday and eventually he finished second there despite the problem he faced on Friday morning.
More specifically, he said at the end of Stage 2 that the battery pack was not working and had to turn on the emergency while he continued to have electrical issues in Stage 3 as well.
In addition to that, he faced some problems with his brakes during the shakedown session and in fact he went wide in the first pass and got stuck on a snow bank resulting in dropping four minutes.
"It’s a great feeling to take a podium here in Sweden, our first in the new hybrid era", Neuville said.
"It’s a bit unexpected after what we saw in Rallye Monte-Carlo, but the team has done a good job.
"My thanks go to everyone at the factory in Germany for pushing hard.
"We could already see in shakedown that the speed was not bad, and it was a surprise to be leading the rally on Friday evening.
"After that, it was a bit more difficult to find the right set-up, but we had enough pace to keep our focus on the podium -and eventually secure second place.
"We now have one-and-half-months to prepare ourselves and the car for Croatia.
"These weeks will be very important and there is a lot of work to be done, but after this result we can look ahead to the upcomings events with more positivity".
Photo Credits: Hyundai
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