Just this once, I\u2019ll start this road book with the conclusion: Thierry and I are hungry! Hungry for victory, for fun during the stages and for trophies to share with our team. I wanted to make that clear before I started the recap of this Rally Sweden \u2026 We\u2019re hungry and our appetite is intact!<\/p>\n
The feeling was great from the moment the wheels started spinning. Just like in Monte, we instantly knew that we would perform well: the car works on the snow as well as it does on tarmac, and the first split times immediately confirmed our first impression.<\/p>\n
Day one was amazing. The Swedish snow and ice felt like velvet under our wheels\u2026 The high-speed stages were perfect for our i20 WRC and Thierry was more focused than ever. Result was: 5 fastest out of 7 stages, and a 28s lead over Jari-Matti! We went back to Torsby\u2019s Service Park as undisputed leaders.<\/p>\n
On the next day, we meant to manage the stages\u2026 we were determined not to make the same mistake as in Monte Carlo. Great tactic: we never were really threatened\u2026 quite the opposite actually, since our closest pursuer was over 43s away! There was only the Super Stage left, a show stage, no longer than 2km… Then it all went wrong!<\/p>\n
While the route wasn\u2019t especially difficult, we slightly hit a pile of truck tyres in a left curve\u2026 Two or three more centimeters and we would\u2019ve been OK, but this small mistake (the only one of the rally) was fatal: the steering shaft was broken\u2026 and the competition was over.<\/p>\n
I could try to find a thousand reasons to explain this: long liaison section, tiredness, less deep concentration, bad luck or whatever, but I won\u2019t. This is our mistake, and we take full responsibility for it.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re deeply disappointed, obviously. Disappointed for ourselves, for our fans\u2026 but especially for the team, who did an amazing job. We owe you a revenge and we are determined to take it starting from the next rally! In the meantime, I think this is the right moment for me to open my quote book: \u201cIt\u2019s not how far you fall, but how high you bounce that counts.\u201d I don\u2019t know who said that but it seems quite appropriate* <\/p>\n
Since I\u2019ve started with the conclusion, I won\u2019t repeat it. But you\u2019ve understood that our motivation remains strong and that we can\u2019t wait to fight in Mexico!<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, I hope to see you all at the rally of the Legend Boucles de Spa!<\/p>\n
Thanks for your support!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Just this once, I\u2019ll start this road book with the conclusion: Thierry and I are hungry! Hungry for victory, for fun during the stages and for trophies to share with our team. I wanted to make that clear before I started the recap of this Rally Sweden \u2026 We\u2019re hungry and our appetite is intact! […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2772,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicolasgilsoul.be\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2771"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicolasgilsoul.be\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicolasgilsoul.be\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicolasgilsoul.be\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicolasgilsoul.be\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nicolasgilsoul.be\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicolasgilsoul.be\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicolasgilsoul.be\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicolasgilsoul.be\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicolasgilsoul.be\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}