Thierry Neuville reveals his target for Safari Rally which is to win and to score more points than Kalle Rovanpera in Kenya as he is aware of his difficulty to perform well in Estonia and Finland.
The Belgian driver secured his first victory of the season earlier this month as he won Rally Italia Sardegna for the third time in his career. He did not score any bonus points for the championship in Sardinia as he was not able to be at the top five in Powerstage times, but he managed to gain three places and to be in second place overall on the drivers' standings after the end of the sixth WRC round. The reigning WRC Champion, Rovanpera, is 25 points ahead of Neuville before headind to Safari Rally and will start first on Friday stages, but Rally Estonia and Rally Finland will be the following events after Kenya which means that the Hyundai driver will struggle on the fast gravel roads compared to his rival who is delivering strong results on these two rallies.
"We all know Kenya can be a good event, our car is quite reliable and strong in such rough conditions", Neuville said.
"But we also know that Finland and Estonia aren’t my privileged surfaces and races in the calendar and they are definitely the ones where Kalle is going to be strong.
"So it was important to take some good points in Sardinia, but it is going to be even more important to have a good event in Kenya and grab some more points, especially more than Kalle on that event.
"The battle will be on there, and it is going to be a tough challenge again as always, but I am really looking forward to that because I have a good feeling.
"The goal is definitely to win, so we will keep fighting all the way through; as we know very well, the rally isn’t over until it’s over.
"We saw that two years ago when we were leading, and then unfortunately had an issue just before the end.
"Hopefully we get the victory this year".
Source: DirtFish.com
Photo Credits: Hyundai
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