GREENSMITH RUES PACENOTE CALL
M-sport Ford driver Gus Greensmith has admitted his first Rally Finland in a works World Rally Car was a bigger undertaking than he thought it would be.
The Manchester driver posted encouraging times, but struggled to match the same pace he’d achieved on his Ford Fiesta WRC debut at Rally Portugal earlier in the season. Greensmith was dropped into the event at the last minute after his teammate Elfyn Evans was ruled out with a back injury.
Greensmith ran ninth for much of the event before hitting a tree and retiring on Sunday morning. “I didn’t expect it to be such a big learning curve,” he said. “It’s been massive, bigger than Portugal. In Portugal there were less things that I hadn’t experienced before. Portugal was a lot about driving the car using the differential, whereas in Finland it was about the diff, the aero and the commitment.
“I couldn’t believe the commitment and the consistency the guys were showing.”
Greensmith endured the worst of the conditions when he ran first on the road on Saturday, spending the day cleaning the line of loose gravel for the cars following.
“Malcolm [Wilson, M-sport managing director] was disappointed that I was disappointed with Saturday, but he was pleased with what we did on that second day.
“The crash was strange: I thought I heard: ‘K-left opens tightens, K-five,’ that’s a fast corner. As soon as I heard what I thought I heard, I was thinking: ‘That can’t be right. I don’t have that note in this stage’. I got lost in the notes. I tried to read the road, but missed the braking point.”