Maurin already focused on Poland

Un rally to forget. Everything started well for the double French rally champion (2013 and 2014), who remained in fourth place in WRC-2 in Portugal: he was in third position at the end of the third special. But he was trapped in the next one and his race ended there.

“I am obviously disappointed to end it like this, he confided. We had adopted a good pace, being relatively careful to preserve our Ford Fiesta RRC, given the very rough roads. The times were interesting, but we went out, even though we weren't taking any risks. It's annoying, especially since we had one shot to play. »

Julien's team could then have carried out the necessary repairs, to allow him to restart in Rally 2, in the hope of gleaning some precious points. But he preferred to skip it, to better prepare for the next stage of his WRC-2 program, which will take him to the special stages of the Polish rally (July 2-5). “We want to approach this new meeting in the best possible conditions, including by carrying out new tests upstream, he clarified. Hence our decision not to hit the road again. » This event will indeed take on a crucial character with a view to the championship, since with two retirements in Monte-Carlo and Sardinia, the French driver no longer has the right to make mistakes if he wants to hope to get back into the leading peloton. .

Find the full report of the Italian rally, produced by our special correspondents in Sardinia, in the 2016 issue of AUTOhebdo, available this evening in digital version, and from this Wednesday on newsstands.