"OK, it’s good to get more points and to still be third in the championship, but it’s definitely not been an easy weekend. I drove the best I could and made no mistakes, and that’s it," said the Aussie.
Munchi’s 'guest' driver
Henning Solberg and
Urmo Aava rounded out the points scorers in seventh and eighth respectively, and while just 5.5 seconds separated the two going into day 3, in the end the latter was unable to keep up and eventually finished 20 seconds behind.
Per-Gunnar Andersson took the final manufacturers’ point in ninth for
Suzuki and was delighted to get his SX4 WRC to the end, something he had only managed twice so far this season - and one of those 'finishes' was under the SupeRally.
"It's been a very tough rally for us but a good one: the car has been perfect from start to finish and I have been very happy with it. We've had no major problems and I hope now that we have got a good basis to work from for the future," said the Swede.
Petter Solberg completed the top ten and the Norwegian was bitterly disappointed - especially as things had looked good at the end of day one when he finished the leg in third. 'Hollywood' slipped back immediately on Saturday however, struggling with the tyres in SS7 and then picked up a puncture in SS8, which he had to stop and change it, losing him 5 minutes.
"It’s been very, very hard," said Petter on Saturday. "We tried but we just didn’t have the pace. We started with a good third position from Friday, and we knew day two would be tough, but even without stopping to change the wheel in stage eight, we just couldn’t keep up."
Of the rest Mads Ostberg came in eleventh with Britain’s
Matthew Wilson twelfth followed by
Conrad Rautenbach,
Federico Villagra, Michal Kosciuszko and
Khalid Al Qassimi, who went out on day 1, but re-joined on Saturday under the SupeRally.
