Team principal Richard Millener ‘feels sorry’ for Grégoire Munster after the M-Sport driver’s Rally del Paraguay effectively ended after just 900 meters.
Munster was hoping to produce something “special’ this weekend at a brand-new event in the World Rally Championship, but he hit something less than one kilometer into the very first stage which wrecked his weekend.
After four stages, he is over 45 minutes off the lead.
Munster told DirtFish: “We hit something, I don’t really know what. I had nothing in my pacenotes, we watched the video, I cannot say what we’ve hit hit, but it’s how it is.
“It was a surprise and it instantly broke the steering arm, the brake line as well, and then at the end of the stage we had a double puncture. So we had to nurse it through here, so yeah. Not much to do anymore with the result, we just see what we can do at the end.”
Millener doesn’t think there’s anything his driver could have done to avoid his fate.
“I just spoke to him quickly then, but he doesn’t know what he hit, he doesn’t know what it was, he didn’t see anything on recce. We didn’t see anything with the other cars, to be honest, in that first section. Maybe there’s a rock pulled out, unlucky for him, I don’t know,” Millener told DirtFish.
“But whatever it was, it was quite an impact and broke the compression strut straight away. And so he had to stop and then he realized the brake line had been broken at the same time. So he made the sensible choice to first fix the brake line otherwise he’d have done the compression strut and run out of fluid and then stopped again.
“So he did the right repair but he said it was very difficult because it was a really narrow section. He had to stop every one and a half minutes to let the next car pass because he couldn’t work on the car and let them pass, hence dropping so much time.
“So yeah, real shame for him I guess. He’s sadly the first one to experience the tough side of this rally, but I think this afternoon, judging by the number of damaged tires and things coming back and the size of the rocks we’re seeing from some of the second pass, I’m sure other people will probably have some dramas as well today and over the weekend. It’s just always disappointing when you’re the very first one within the first proper corner really.
“I feel sorry for Grég,” Millener added. “He’s done a lot of prep this weekend and he was really trying to show that he can do well on a rally that’s new for everybody and sadly that’s not going to happen now.
“So yeah real tough one, but he’ll just have to work on individual stages over the rest of the weekend and show there’s still pace there.”
McErlean has seriously impressed his boss on Friday morning
By contrast, team-mate Josh McErlean had a good morning – despite an overshoot and a crazy moment where co-driver Eoin Treacy lost grip on his pacenotes over a big jump.
Millener enthused: “Josh, for me, has been pretty phenomenal, really. When you take away the spin, which dropped him a lot of the time, and you take away the five seconds lost on the first split, the first stage, it was for Grég, for sure. The four seconds lost later on was because the pacenotes flew around the car. If you look at all of his other splits, he’s on the pace of everybody else. Like, genuinely on the pace of everybody else.
“I have to say that was really impressive so if he could have a clean afternoon with no mistakes, great. But I think this afternoon punctures and rocks and things will throw a few surprises into the mix.”
