Rally Sardinia: Dani Sordo - Kronos interview

Dani Sordo : " Some good times... " Last year in Sardinia, Dani won his very first World event in the Junior category. For his third outing on gravel behind the wheel of a World Rally Car, the young Spaniard would like to celebrate this trying " ...

Dani Sordo : " Some good times... "

Last year in Sardinia, Dani won his very first World event in the Junior category. For his third outing on gravel behind the wheel of a World Rally Car, the young Spaniard would like to celebrate this trying " to set some good times and to be consistent..."

Which comparison can you make after Mexico and Argentina, your first two gravel events with a WRC? Argentina seemed more difficult ?

I think generally speaking I had a better feeling with the Xsara in Mexico. To me the road surface there was more `normal', maybe less specific than Argentina. There the road is covered in a thin layer of sand which makes the car's settings difficult to find and also which caused heavy road cleaning on the first day. The car moves a lot, behaves funny and I struggled to get it right. Both Sebastien and Marc my co-driver told me this event is one of the toughest. I found that consistency was hard to achieve as in some stages, we could set good times and in some others, very average ones! I believe experience is the key in Argentina more than is Mexico : as a proof, Carlos has often been faster than Seb' in Argentina unlike in most of the other rallies where Seb matched his pace straight away.

In Catalunya and Corsica, you benefited from the terrain's knowledge you had after competing the previous year in S1600 and you just changed a few things in your pacenotes. Do you think it will be the same in Sardinia?

No I don't think so, especially concerning my pacenotes. I will start again from scratch this year simply because it was our first world event on gravel with a C2 last year and I'm not convinced we did the best job we could. After Finland and Germany, it was better. I also know most of stages have changed and I prefer to do it all again than correcting my notes all the way through a stage. Last thing is that driving a S1600 and a WRC on gravel is very different. The Xsara behaves so nicely on the jumps for example that my pacenotes have to be changed.

You won in Sardinia last year in S1600 and it is your third gravel event with a WRC. Do you think it is time for you to increase the pace and your ambitions?

I don't know. It's always hard to say. It is true that I feel more confident with the car the more I drive it. The feeling is improving all the time and of course I tend to increase the speed. In Italy, I will try to set good times and to be consistent. In the end, in Argentina we didn't do too bad. There, it was also a question of patience and driving without making mistakes.