Ramona Karlsson has revealed the unfortunate sequence of events that led to her exit on last month’s Philips Rally Argentina before the event, round five of the FIA World Rally Championship powered by Nokia, had barely got underway.
Karlsson and co-driver Miriam Walfridsson were chasing Production Car world championship points for a second consecutive event only for disaster to strike on the opening superspecial stage.
“After about four kilometres on Thursday’s stage, we touched a tree with our front door,” explained Karlsson, Sweden’s leading lady driver. “We continued without any problems - except for the door that opened, and Miriam for a moment needed to let go of her pace notes to grab the door. It resulted in a misunderstanding in the pace notes, and I went flat over a crest, but after the crest there was a hairpin left.”
She continued: “We went outside the track, where there was some obstacles. One of the obstacles hit the oil coolant that is at the right front side of the car. We continued, but after some 100 metres the oil lamp started to light, so we turned off the engine. But at the service we realised that it was already too late before the lamp started to light. The engine was damaged and we could not continue.”
Karlsson and Walfridsson haven’t nominated the Acropolis Rally in Greece as one of their six scoring rounds so will be back in action in their Mitsubishi Lancer on Brother Rally New Zealand from 22-24 June.