Hi, friends!
It was so hard week for my co-driver Damir P and myself at super tough gravel Rally Portugal which is always first European gravel round of the World Rally Championship.
Recce was long and tough with puncture on rentacar and you know how it goes with modern rentacars - they don't have the spare tire, just a spray to repair the puncture. Crazy when you are on sharp rocks.
But we did it and next morning we had to go to the real tire repair shop to make a proper tire repair. Yeah, we completed recce and on Thursday morning did two runs at shakedown.
It was a sandy surface, something we did for the first time so we had to be more careful not to crash the car before we even start the race.
Later on Thursday we had ceremonial start and super special stage on tarmac streets of Figueras da Foz which we did OK, I think.
Although gravel is my favorite surface, I found this rally tough despite staying on the roads which were very rough most of the time.
In the middle of Saturday, after longest special stage of the rally, 37km long Amarante stage, we felt something was not good. Back of the car started to slide crazy.
Yeah, limited slip diff was doing crazy things. We decided to go for the following test in a limp mode just to go to the service park right after that.
But after 4km of it, gearbox decided to quit with the big hole in it. That was it for us - first retirement in WRC in 2024 of three outings.
Now we have to make repairs because Sardinia is just behind a corner...
THANKS, HIVE, SO MUCH!!! ❤️
PLEASE KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED FOR!
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Cheers!