Munster hints at his next Rally1 outing with M-Sport Ford

Gregoire Munster says that he will make his second outing of the season with M-Sport Ford at Central European Rally later this month and does a review of his participation at Rally Chile.

The Luxembourger driver made his WRC debut in Chile last weekend and finished 13th overall as he dropped from his seventh position when he had to drive slowly in Stage 12 due to a double right puncture. He thought that he broke the steering, as he hit a bank in SS12, and stopped briefly 11.4 Km into the stage, but afterwards he decided to move again and rejoined SS12 not long before Kalle Rovanpera who had to slow down due to the dust. Munster completed that stage with a seven-minute time loss resulting in dropping outside the top ten. In general, his weekend was not easy as he faced a problem with the turbo and the launch control in SS2 and SS7 respectively while he had to use the handbrake on the last two stages of the rally as he lost the brakes of his Puma. Last but not least, the most impressive thing is what his co-driver, Louis Louka, did on Friday morning as he had to read the pacenotes from the self-phone due to the fact that the crew forgot the pacenote book at the service park.

Gregoire Munster had participated in WRC2 and JWRC ealier this season and it is expected to drive the Ford Puma for a second consecutive event after his outing in Chile which will be at Central European Rally. The 24-year old has the support of Jourdan Serderidis who decided to retire from WRC at the end of this year's Acropolis Rally.

"If you take into account everything that happened, I mean the pacenotes, tyre delamination, a small off from my side and today the front brakes", Munster said. 

"It wasn’t easy, maybe we have to change the car number for Central Europe. 

"In general everything that happened, happened for a reason. 

"I think it was a good learning from our side and all the issues we had, we managed to solve them. 

"We have been first on the road for two days cleaning the stage and that’s something I have never done before in a Rally2 car. 

"That was a good thing we learned, then all that power you have to try and transform into traction here is so difficult because on one side there is so little grip and then also it is so demanding for the tyres".

Photo Credits: M-Sport