OMV Kronos
Citroen's Manfred Stohl was left bitterly disappointed following the Rallye de France-Tour de Corse at the weekend, after a pretty dismal showing in his Xsara WRC car.
Stohl went into the event on the back-foot after crashing out on the third stage in Spain the weekend before. The off on the Rally Catalunya also meant that he had to switch to the car that had been prepped and packed up for Japan and with his confidence battered was always going to be up against it.
Early on he struggled and he was the first to admit on day 1 there was something wrong - but not with the car, but rather his head.
Things then went from bad to worse on the second leg and fuel pressure problems in SS11 cost him over 17 minutes, dropping him from eleventh to 27th overall.
If he thought that was the end of his misfortune however he was wrong and on the very last stage he was demoted to 14th by
BP Ford's
Mikko Hirvonen, something that meant he also missed out on the final manufacturers' point too.
"That's no fun anymore. The whole team tries desperately but there is no progress. All that remains now is hope," said the Austrian.
"Perhaps Japan will bring on the turnaround. Such a run just has to end sometime. We're sporadically achieving very good times. If we manage to keep that going for a whole rally we'll be up top again."
