Mārtiņš Sesks has retired from day one of Rally Chile after damaging two of his five tires on the final stage of Friday morning.
The Latvian, who starred in Poland and Latvia earlier this season, cleared the third stage but was unable to complete the liaison section back to service in Concepción aboard his hybrid-less Ford Puma Rally1.
Making just his third start in a Rally1 car, Sesks wasn’t able to set a time on SS1 which was cancelled for the majority of crews and was slowest of the Rally1 cars as he admitted to bedding himself into the event carefully on the second test.
But it all went wrong for the 25-year-old on SS3, as he carried far too much speed into a right-hander and smacked the left-side of his Puma into the scenery.
Sesks and co-driver Renārs Francis stopped to change the front-left wheel which had been punctured, then continued through the stage at reduced pace.
The Latvian's progress out of stage three towards service was closely monitored by FIA officials
It later transpired both left-hand tires had lost air and so despite making the end of the stage, and attempting to drive back to service, Sesks has been forced to retire for the day with just three freely rotating wheels and tires attached to his car.
He told DirtFish: “Yeah basically we had only one spare… yeah, it was unfortunate.
“It was a right-hander which went OK and then the rear snapped off and we hit the bank. And then it was both tires that were punctured. On the side of the road, they have these quite sharp banks.
“Everything is straight, the steering is straight it’s just the tires,” Sesks confirmed.
Taking two spare tires would have meant Sesks could have continued in the rally, but that never looked like the right strategy.
“There’s a very low puncture risk,” Sesks said, “so this one caught us on experience of slippery places. A few corners before it was really smooth and nice there and then you have these rocks, but yeah.
“Of course it’s not the nicest part of learning, but yeah as long as everything is in one piece we are OK. Now I know for tomorrow I need to write down the places where there’s slippery stuff, because that caught me out.”
FIA regulations mandate that on road sections, all four tires must be freely rotating
Ahead of the event, M-Sport team principal Richard Millener had said there was “no pressure” from the team’s side on Sesks, but did make clear he didn’t want to see any mistakes.
“I said to him, I don’t want to see any mistakes,” Millener told DirtFish. “You’re here to enjoy yourself now. You don’t know the stages, new notes. You don’t know that the notes are as good as they should be for this car, not being in it for a month or so now.
“So first pass is go and check the notes. Second pass, if you’re feeling happy and confident, go for it. But there’s always drama at this rally. It’s a different drama to Greece. It’s high speed here. There’s still a very tight championship battle going on. If you go around and enjoy yourself and go sensible, you’ll end up with a good position and that’s what we want to see.
“We want him to do a full rally as well. But again, show us a bit of pace when he feels comfortable, so no pressure from our side.”
