Andreas Mikkelsen and Anders Jaeger-Amland were forced to retire from Rallye Monte-Carlo on Saturday, holding a podium position.

After not making the best tyre choice for the two opening stages on Thursday evening, the Norwegian duo started Friday with holding ninth position. A better tyre choice and impressive driving saw them climb into a podium position by the end of the day, and Andreas were very happy with the day; – It’s been a very positive day, we have managed to climb all the way up to third in the overall classification! The feeling with the car is extremely good right now, I really feel I can push – and dance with the car. It’s a fantastic feeling, and it’s been a while since the last time it was like this.

Unfortunately, Rallye Monte-Carlo came to a sudden ending after the opening stage on Saturday, when they finished stage 9 with a broken wheel; – It was actually a lot of things going on this stage, Andreas explains. – In the beginning I hit something after 6-7 kilometres and hit the steering a bit, after that we had a stall. At the end of the stage I lost the rear in right hand corner, and the impact damaged pretty much everything of the left rear wheel. Meaning it was game over for us.

The special regulations for Rallye Monte-Carlo does not allow restarting on Sunday if you retire on Saturday, meaning Andreas will not continue the rally. – This was certainly not the result we were going for, and not being able to restart is such a shame, I’m really sorry for that on my team’s behalf. Now we have to look ahead and also there is a lot of positives to take with us after yesterday. We have been on the pace, fighting for podium positions and that is what we bring with us in to Rally Sweden. The feeling with the car has been fantastic, all in all very promising for the snow in Rally Sweden!

All the best,

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