End of Day “Meet the Crews” Session Day 2

Present:
Yves Matton, Citroën Total World Rally Team
Malcolm Wilson, Ford World Rally Team
Bruno De Pianto, WRC Team Mini Portugal

Sébastien Loeb, Citroën Total World Rally Team
Jari-Matti Latvala, Ford World Rally Team
Mikko Hirvonen, Citroën Total World Rally Team

Q:
Yves, let's start with Sebastien. Another really strong day for him out there today. You must be thinking the win is in the bag.
YM:
Yes, but something can always happen. You never know.

Q:
Mikko wasn't confident yesterday. Have you seen any improvement?
YM:
Today the first stage was tough. Afterwards he could move up to third place.

Q:
Will he be pushing hard tomorrow to catch Jari-Matti?
YM:
I think he can finish third. First and third would be really good for us.

Q:
Yesterday Petter Solberg was in second position. But the first running on Panzerplatte stage was very problematic. What happened?
MW:
He was going fantastic, but very early on he made a small mistake and went straight on at a junction. He lost seven seconds there. Then he hit the rear wheel when he ran wide at a corner and damaged the wheel.

Q:
We all want to see him back tomorrow. Well he come back?
MW:
The car is repaired and is back in Parc Fermé. He is prepared to compete again tomorrow.

Q:
Yesterday with place two and three it felt like a win for you in Germany. What have you thought of Jari-Matti?
MW:
We are happy with the pace we've seen from him. We are also pleased with Tänak, who set his fastest time on Tarmac. It's good to have something to build on for the next Tarmac rallies.

Q:
Bruno, how good is it to have Chris Atkinson on board?
BDP:
It's been a good job for him. He still has to find out things about his car and figure out how it works.

Q:
Do you think that he could finish on the podium before the end of this year?
BDP:
Anything is possible. We'll see.

Q:
Sebastien, you have quite a comfortable lead. Was this a good day?
SL:
Yes, we had a good start in the morning with some rain on the stage, but the others had more. This enabled us to increase our lead even more. The tyre choice was difficult, but the soft tyres worked well.

Q:
How much rain did you have? The others had a lot, but lucky Loeb did not have so much?
SL:
We had Between 6 and 8 kilometres of heavy rain. But then it was dry again. The others had rain earlier on.

Q:
Tomorrow you will be doing another 65 km? How confident are you feeling with the lead you have?
SL:
We don't have to take too much of a risk. There will be long stages with narrow and tricky sections. We will try to do well.

Q:
Second position overall for you Jari-Matti. Disappointment for your team-mate. How was your day?
JML:
Now I am second and Petter is not here. He had a good rally but the conditions were very difficult this morning with the rain. With the hard tyres I made a mistake and went off the road a little bit and lost some time. On the first stage it was very slippery. I wanted to win Panzerplatte but I couldn't. Maybe next year...

Q:
Who did win Panzerplatte?
JML:
The guy next to me. He seems to be the man on a mission...

Q:
What about tomorrow? Do you think Mikko can catch you?
JML:
For sure he's gonna try it in the first stage, so I have to watch out. I am not in a comfortable position yet. But we don't need to take big risks.

Q:
Mikko, we haven't seen you in such good form as in the past. Are you feeling a bit more confident with the car now?
MH:
It's getting better. The car is perfect, it's me who isn't working properly. I can't blame it on the car. I'll just be driving my pace and keep my rhythm tomorrow.

Q:
How did you deal with the conditions on Panzerplatte today?
MH:
It was okay. First time through I took a bit of a risk. Some sections were really slippery. I tried to push Jari-Matti but it didn't work.

Q:
Yves Matton wants you to do some testing on the car for Rallye de France. Is the plan for tomorrow not to push too hard?
MH:
Yes, we are going to try something on the car, but to test something on the car doesn't mean we have to go slow.