Thierry Neuville says that the disappointment with the failure he had in Sardinia hit him quite hard, but he is happy that Hyundai secured a double podium in this event.
The Belgian driver reported a transmission issue at the end of Stage 5 which led him to lose more than one minute in that stage and to drop from sixth to tenth overall.
In addition to that, he was forced to retire on Saturday following his crash in Stage 12 as he ran wide, hit the rear left of his i20N and rolled. However, he managed to get going again in this stage, but eventually he stopped due to the fact that his engine was overheating.
Hyundai mechanics managed to repair his car for the final day of the event, therefore Neuville restarted under the regulations of Rally2 on Sunday and scored five points in Powerstage as he was the fastest driver in that stage.
"It was a difficult day on Sunday and a difficult day Friday as well", Neuville said.
"So at the end, we took at least some points away from the weekend.
"To be honest Sunday, was really tough, or Friday, actually.
"The disappointment with the failure we had in the car again, it hit us quite hard.
"And despite showing a lot of motivation and fighting spirit over the last five events, I was a bit more down yesterday and I struggled to keep my concentration.
"I made a mistake, but yeah, at least we were able to take the powerstage points and push quite hard and took away what we could and look ahead.
"There’s no other thing we can do at the end.
"I mean, we were actually very unlucky with the technical issue on Friday, because it was not something very clear.
"It was the boot of the driveshaft actually that broke.
"The oil came out and we overheated the joint, and it just went.
"So it’s nothing, what the team could have done better and we were really unlucky this time.
"But for sure, we know from events before that there’s still a margin for improvement.
"But somehow I’m happy we get two cars on the podium this weekend, and our first win, because the people are working hard, they are working hard and they didn’t get any return yet".
Source: DirtFish.com
Photo Credits: Hyundai
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