This page contains archived information and may not display perfectly

ERC - M.Griebel “There were no mistakes"

06.08.17

ERC - 2017 Rally Rzeszow - ERC Junior Under 28 Post-Event Quotes

ERC, Rally Rzeszow, Motorsport

Round 3 of 6: Rally Rzeszow, 3-5 August

JAN ČERNÝ (CZE) Position: Sixth
Co-driver: Petr Černohorský (CZE) Car: ŠKODA Fabia R5

“For sure we wanted to be really fast here and be on the podium but we are last. I didn’t have the right pacenotes and didn’t have the confidence with the driving because of this. Normally I love the stages like this, really nice, tricky and fast but I didn’t have the confidence. We know what the problem is and this is important. Now we prepare for Barum when hopefully we can be faster and stronger. This was a really difficult rally with a lot of experience but I’m not happy with the result and we have to speak about the pacenotes for the next event with less details for sure.”

MARIJAN GRIEBEL (DEU) Position: First
Co-driver: Stefan Kopcyzk (DEU) Car: ŠKODA Fabia R5

“It was the perfect weekend for me. I was a bit disappointed in Spain because things were not running as we wanted but it was so much fun to drive this car on these stages. There were no mistakes, Stefan did a perfect job and the car was great. Things are getting better and better all the time and so far this season it has been really good. I did not like the stages in Canarias and I knew that before the start but I was still on the podium. The main goal, the main focus here was to win ERC Junior Under 28, not make any mistakes and focus on driving at my pace.”

NIKOLAY GRYAZIN (RUS) Position: DNF (accident)
Co-driver: Yaroslav Federov (RUS) Car: ŠKODA Fabia R5

“I don’t know if it was a mistake with my driving but it was really slippery on a right corner, we slide wide, crashed and rolled. The car has quite bad damage but I think the roll cage is okay. I am okay but Yaroslav hurt his foot when the car number 21 crashed into our car and he fell into a ditch when he tried to run. It’s really frustrating because the target was to finish. We were leading our category but we were not driving so fast, it was safety driving. It was a little mistake but there was no chance to save the car.”

TOMASZ KASPERCZYK (POL) Position: Fifth
Co-driver: Damian Syty (POL) Car: Ford Fiesta R5

“An extremely hot Rally Rzeszow confirmed that keeping a cool head is very important in this sport, especially in such an unbearable heat. We managed to stay calm and focused. This let us reach our goal – to score many points in the championship. Even in this hot weather we covered competitive kilometres with joy. It was a great weekend for us – full of fierce rivalry run in a good, sporting atmosphere. I had a lot of fun behind the wheel of my Tiger Rally Team Fiesta R5 on demanding and twisty stages around Rzeszów. It is hard not to be satisfied when we realise that we successfully competed with drivers like Bruno and Jan. In Barum Rally it is going to be much harder to get them, but for sure we will try.”

PEPE LÓPEZ (ESP) Position: DNF (accident)
Co-driver: Borja Rozada (ESP) Car: Peugeot 208 T16

“It's a shame to have finished the rally like this on the first stage, because we came here with all the homework done and ready to race at top speed, but this is rallying. Right before the crash we were struggling with the car, though we are not sure what was happening. We get into a ditch, hit the culvert and then rolled over. Luckily we are okay with minor contusions. This result is bad, but the FIA ERC rules give us some margin, so not everything is lost in the ERC Junior U28 Championship. However, we don't want to be too much concerned about it. Now we are totally focused on the Barum Rally and we want to keep fighting in the future.”

SYLVAIN MICHEL (FRA) Position: Fourth
Co-driver: Jérôme Degout (FRA) Car: ŠKODA Fabia R5

“It was a very difficult rally and congratulations to Bryan [Bouffier] for his victory and to Marijan for the [ERC Junior win]. We were satisfied at the start because we had a very good feeling with the car after no testing, which was difficult to know if we had a good set-up or not. We went off on all three stages on Saturday morning so it was difficult. We knew we must relax but we also had to keep pushing because second place in the championship is very important. Now we will work to be at the Barum Rally.”

JOSH MOFFETT (IRL) Position: Fifth
Co-driver: James Fulton (IRL) Car: Ford Fiesta R5

“I was happy enough with stage one but on stage two we just lost our rhythm completely and the brakes went pretty bad towards the second half of the stage and we ended up going into a field and had a very bad stage. I think we dropped around 40 seconds but I’m surprised that’s all it was. We had some brake problems and the medium tyres didn’t work for us on Saturday morning. We had hard tyres for the afternoon but we still had problems with the breaks. The heat was so hard on everything. It was a right difficult event but we enjoyed it and learned a lot. It would have been nice to have been a few places further up but it is what it is and now Zlín will be another new learning curve.”

JOSÉ SUÁREZ (ESP) Position: Third
Co-driver: Cándido Carrera (ESP) Car: Peugeot 208 T16

“I’m feeling really good. We needed to score points after a hard start to the season so we were being calm and focused, more like we were fishing, to keep the confidence. I am quite happy with what we have done and with our performance over the weekend because we had a best time overall. We had a problem with the gearbox yesterday and had to use second gear to take the junctions and sometimes we had to use reverse. It was hard not to lose time but the team changed it amazing fast in service and I am proud of them. I am sorry for Pepe but sometimes it’s him, sometimes it's me. The good thing is they were okay and we could make a good job for the team and get some good points for the championship.”