BREEN’S BACK WITH SARDINIA WRC PODIUM
Irishman returns to the World championship’s top three with Italy runner-up spot
Craig Breen’s World championship podium return in Sardinia last Sunday was secondary to the feeling that he’s no longer lost in his factorysupported Ford Puma Rally1.
Breen has struggled to recapture his top-three form from the season-opening Monte Carlo Rally in recent events but felt his drive to second on Rally Italy was proof of recent progress.
After finishing runner-up on a WRC round for the fifth time, the 32-year-old M-Sport driver said: “Whatever would have happened, I felt better with myself and my driving. I would say I got slightly lost on the last couple of rallies, trying to chase something that I probably didn’t need to be chasing.
“I just tried to resort back to the car doing the work and enjoy the weekend. The speed was a lot better and I was really happy with the pace of the car. It’s the first time that I have felt confident on these type of roads and these type of stages.
The pace was quite strong and there was a margin there where I could push a little bit more. It was important that we had a result like this and a podium.”
Breen’s second-place finish in Sardinia halted a slide down the championship order and means he will head to Kenya for the Safari Rally from June 22-26 fourth in the standings. He hopes his Sardinia result will serve as a pre-Safari lift.
“It will definitely make us feel better,” said the Irishman. “Having this good result in the bag should give us a bit more confidence. Safari will be completely new for me, a proper challenge. Let’s try and bring the speed forward that we had here.”
Co-driven by compatriot Paul Nagle, Breen began the final day of the Algherobased Rally Italy 20.8 seconds ahead of Dani Sordo, whom he carshared with at Hyundai last season. By beating the Spaniard through the final leg’s opening stage, Breen edged his margin to 24.0s and finished the gravel event
29.8s in front of Sordo.
“It wasn’t so nice at all to be honest,” Breen said of starting ahead of Sordo on Sunday’s running order. “Normally, Sunday morning, first stage, is a bit nervous because you never know what someone is going to do. I was a bit nervous from the flying finish to the stop control what the time was. I felt like I was slow, but the time was not too bad and I was really happy. It was nice to be in a race with Dani because for the last few years when I have been driving, he wasn’t. We never really got to come together in the same rallies.”