Citroen privateer
Urmo Aava scored his first point of the season on the Rally d'Italia Sardegna on Sunday, when he took eighth place in his PH Sport-run C4 WRC.
The Estonian, who has made the step-up to the 'senior' level this season, had come close to getting points in Jordan, until he hit a rock on the final day and broke his suspension, robbing him of an almost certain fifth place finish and his best WRC result to date.
While the event in Sardinia didn't go quite as well as that in the Middle East, he still ran in the points from SS2 and in total managed to post 14 top-ten stages times, including one sixth fastest effort and three seventh best times.
In the end he finished just 20 seconds or so off the semi-works Ford Focus RS WRC of
Henning Solberg.
"I'm pleased as we wanted to learn here and we scored a point," reflected the World Rally Team Estonia man. "I was not able to keep up with Henning Solberg [on day three] and so I just wanted to keep my position."
Conrad Rautenbach meanwhile was 13th overall in the similar C4 WRC car run by PH Sport, having been slowed on days one and two by a handbrake problem.
With that mechanism disconnected on the last day though and numerous changes made to his C4 to find more power, the Zimbabwean was a lot more happier and he even managed a sixth fastest time in SS14, the 18.66 kilometre-run through Sorilis 1.
"Today has been a great day, our best yet with the car. It's really good to be up there and putting some good times in, but at the same time that makes the rest of the event and the problems we've experienced even more frustrating," said Rautenbach. "If only we'd had a clean run for the rest of the rally. But I guess that's the way the sport goes.
"The team did a lot of work to the engine last night and it really helped. I'd noticed the power had been a little bit lazy. There just wasn't the same sort of punch coming out of corners which we should have had. We got it all right today, it was fantastic.
"Not having the handbrake mechanism thing going on in the back of my mind helped too and I just focused on the driving.
"As I said, it's a shame today was our first day with no problems. But now it's about looking ahead to Greece. I'm determined to get through the Acropolis without any trouble and have more days like today."
