by Rob Wilkins
TO HEAR THE INTERVIEW IN FULL WITH GIGI GALLI : CLICK HERE
Stobart Ford's
Gigi Galli finished the first half of the season with 17 points on the board, following five points finishes from eight events, including a podium result in Sweden. The Italian is currently the top Stobart driver in the drivers' championship - in seventh place overall, 1 point up on
Henning Solberg.
Crash.net Radio caught up with Gigi recently to chat to him about the year to date...
Crash.net:
Gigi, we have had eight of this year's 15 WRC events so far, how happy have you been with your performances?
Gigi Galli:
First of all I would like to say hello to everybody. It has been a long time since we last spoke together. I am just so pleased because we have done generally what we planned. When we spoke about the championship at the start of the year we were so happy to have this chance to drive for Ford. We had a plan to start the season quite carefully and to improve our confidence with the car. After the first few events we wanted to try to push a little bit more - and this is what we did.
Until Sardinia the speed wasn't that good. Okay we had a good performance in Sweden and got a podium but to be honest we were a little bit lucky because some of my rivals had some troubles. It was not a real podium.
But after Jordan we saw some good speed in some stages and in Sardinia we had a good result [and finished fourth]. Of course we had some bad luck in Greece and in Turkey. In Greece we had a problem with a stone and in Turkey we had a problem with the car [and then I was sidelined by dehydration]. But it is okay. I am so pleased because we found a good pace. Now all we need is just a bit of luck to be consistent.
Crash.net:
How frustrating was it to go into the summer break on the back of two DNF's in Greece and Turkey?
GG:
In Greece everything happened. On the first day in SS2 we hit a stone in the middle of the road. It was completely my mistake and we broke the front right track control arm in the suspension. The second day we had some troubles with the hydraulics. I don't understand yet what happened. But we lost completely the hydraulic pressure. The third day again we had a problem and hit a rock. It was still good though as we found a good speed and we even won the ‘
Colin McRae Trophy'. This was very good for us and
Stobart. But of course it was a little bit frustrating because we didn't score any points.
