by Rob Wilkins
Toni Gardemeister has swapped his privately entered
Citroen Xsara WRC for a Mitsubishi Lancer WRC this season and so far he has been pretty happy with his new stead, scoring points in two events out of four. Here he speaks exclusively to
Crash.net Radio...
Q:
Toni, you are competing in a privately entered Mitsubishi Lancer WRC05 this year. How have you found things to date?
Toni Gardemeister:
It has gone quite well. In Monte Carlo I was expecting to be a bit more competitive but the weather this year was not so good for us - it was dry and not really changeable. But other than that it was good. We had no problems with the car. It behaved quite well, especially when you consider we didn't really test with it before the rally - only a few days. On the snow in Sweden and Norway the car worked well too and we had good speed. Then in Portugal we had a small problem with the
FIA [which meant I was disqualified at the end of day one].
Q:
You've had two points' finishes so far, seventh in Monte Carlo and sixth in Sweden. Are you happy with that?
TG:
It is good that we got points - but in Sweden it could have been a lot better without the driveshaft problem we had on the second day and the penalty. But otherwise it went well and I am pleased with the performances.
Q:
Of the four events you have done this year, two were new to the WRC - namely Portugal and Norway. How did you find them?
TG:
Both rallies were very nice. Norway was very bumpy and it was very difficult to adjust the car to work well there. But the stages were good, quite fast. The weather was not so nice there was a lot of snow. Portugal for me seemed to very good too but very tricky. The stages were very difficult, but having said that they were good to drive.
Q:
As you mentioned a moment ago, you were excluded in Portugal. You didn't finish in Norway either. How frustrating was that?
TG:
In Norway I was quite upset. I made a small mistake there. We had good speed and we were fighting with Petter [Solberg] early on Saturday. I tried to pass him and I made an error [in SS9]. That cost me 20 minutes and that was it - the fight was over. I was a bit annoyed with myself. I made this one mistake - that was all, game over
[Toni then retired at the end of second day with mechanical problems – ed].
