M-Sport Ford has retired Pierre-Louis Loubet from Rally Italy Sardinia upon discovering further damage to his Puma Rally1.
Loubet had been running as high as third on Friday morning, but dropped down the order when his car refused to engage into gear in the time control for the afternoon’s first test.
Although Loubet eventually got going on a stage that was ultimately canceled, he was handed a three-minute time penalty for causing a delay and missing his start time.
And then, two stages later, he was forced out for good with damaged steering on the final test of the day.
Loubet had been due to restart on Saturday as first car on the road, but repairing the car in service on Friday night M-Sport discovered “more damage than was anticipated.
“The team has therefore made the difficult decision to retire the car from the event.”
