Mads Østberg’s European Rally Championship season is on-hold until co-driver Patrik Barth fully recovers from their accident on Rally di Roma Capitale last month.
The Norwegian and Swedish pairing ran wide and hit an unprotected tree on Barth’s side of the car in what was a scary accident. Østberg emerged with broken ribs but Barth required surgery for a broken jaw along with hip, arm and rib injuries.
Østberg confirmed to DirtFish that he himself is not fit enough to compete at this week’s Barum Rally Zlín, but he will also miss Rali Ceredigion two weeks later as he doesn’t wish to return to rallying without Barth by his side.
“I couldn’t get the clearance from my doctors to do it [Zlín], so I would obviously not do that when my insurance and everything is not covering me for the weekend,” Østberg said.
“That’s the main reason, but I wanted to recover fully, which meant that we are missing out on this event which then again means we will also not go to the next event in Wales, because after missing the first round [in Hungary] with medical reasons and then the accident in Rome, we are not fighting for the championship anymore.
“And I want to come back properly together with Patrik. I want to support him there in his recovery and when we come back, we want to do it together.
“We’ve been in the game for a long time and Patrik is one of the best friends that I have, so obviously what we went through in Rome I think for both of us was quite traumatic,” Østberg added.
“I’ve been through a lot of accidents but this was different, let’s say, because he was injured and it was quite dramatic the first minutes when he was passed out, it was a really hard experience to be honest and we are doing this together because we are such good friends.
“Obviously it’s also important for us to do well and do well for our partners, but our main ambition with doing all this is to enjoy and have fun together and I’m not 18 anymore trying to prove myself of becoming a factory driver in WRC.
We always have to learn from the accidents, and I think that's how we improveMads Østberg
“Our targets are different than that, so we are sticking together as friends and we are enjoying it together so it makes no sense for me to rush or stress anything. I want to do this downwards and upwards journey together with Patrik.”
Østberg said “it’s a bit too early” to discuss when Barth might be fit enough to compete, but admitted their “dream” is to return for the final ERC round of the season in Poland [October 11-13].
“That’s what we want to do,” he said. “We also have been looking at some small rallies before that, if we are able to maybe do one rally together before we go back to ERC it would be what we wish, but it’s all about his recovery time at the moment.”
Østberg also confirmed that he is working in conjunction with the FIA to understand what led to his accident in Rome.
“We always have to learn from the accidents, and I think that’s how we improve. Like I said in my first [social media] post I really want to thank the people there, the medical reaction time, all of that was really impressive and the way the system inside the car with the SOS button and everything, it worked really well so I’m really thankful for that.
“At the same time, we have done our analysis of what happened and we can see there are some factors there which shouldn’t have happened, which needs to be addressed and will be addressed with the FIA. We will do that, but I prefer not to share any details right now.
“But we are making a report with video evidence and pictures to improve these kind of things for the future, because the accident was strange. It took me some time to really understand what happened because we didn’t push really hard, we didn’t go to the limit, there was no mistake in our pacenotes so I was curious to find out really what happened and we can see that there are circumstances there which basically makes me drive off the road.
“I’m not even trying to follow the road because there have been changes done since recce which shouldn’t have happened, basically. So this is something we need to address and look at for the future because we do have rules in place to ensure these things don’t happen and our experience, and our view, at least on this particular accident was it could have been avoided.
“I don’t mean to criticize anyone or blame someone else, I just think it’s important to address it to make sure similar things don’t happen in the future.”
