Swedish Rally: Skoda final summary

Jani Paasonen and Mattias Ekström finished in 9th and 10th places respectively on the Swedish Rally.

During the final day Mattias climbed six places to claim his first WRC points for the Skoda Motorsport World Rally Team but Janne Tuohino went off near the end of the penultimate stage when chasing eighth place.

Despite running on only three wheels he attempted to complete the final stage but when he lost oil pressure with 7kms to go he had no choice but to retire.

The World Rally Championship now heads for two consecutive long haul events, starting with Rally Mexico on March 11-13 where the team hopes to debut the newly homologated second evolution of the Fabia WRC.

Quotes:

Jani Paasonen:
This was a really difficult rally for anyone running near the front of the field but I am fairly happy with some of the times I was able to set. Now I am looking forward to Mexico.

Mattias Ekström:
I have really enjoyed this experience but I was quite frustrated last night about the power steering problem. If you take away the time it cost me I think that I could have finished on the podium and that would have been an incredible result for both myself and the Skoda Motorsport World Rally Team. Now I must concentrate on defending my DTM title with Audi Sport but maybe one day I will be able to drive the Fabia WRC again.

Janne Tuohino:
Overall I was happy with my performance until I made a mistake near the end of SS19. I suffered badly on the gravel yesterday afternoon but I thought that I could have still finished in the points. In the end we had to stop and that is a disappointing result for me.

Martin Muehlmeier, Head of Škoda Motorsport:
I was very pleased that all three of our drivers were able to be competitive here. It was a very good line-up for us on this rally. We still have to resolve our lack of consistency but otherwise we showed again just how fast the Fabia WRC can be.

-skoda-