Volkswagen Motorsport chief Kris Nissen has declared his squad’s entry on Neste Oil Rally Finland last week a success, despite neither Joonas Lindroos nor Andreas Mikkelsen reaching the finish of the world championship qualifier.
Finn Lindroos crashed out on stage eight on Friday with Norwegian Mikkelsen stopping on stage 17 on Saturday with damage to his radiator caused by striking a large rock.
As well as assessing Lindroos and Mikkelsen for possible inclusion in VW’s factory line-up when it enters the WRC in 2013, the Hannover firm was using the event to give its technicians experience of working on world championship rallies.
“The rally was a successful start for the entire team,” said Nissen. “The service crews did an excellent job during their first event. The procedures functioned very well, my thanks to the whole team. The driver pairings also did a great job. Andreas and his co-driver Ola Floene were particularly impressive and showed flashes of brilliance. In general, we collected valuable experience during this first rally weekend and learned a great deal. We now look forward to competing [on] ADAC Rallye Deutschland [later this month].”
Lindroos and Mikkelsen were both armed with a Skoda Fabia Super 2000s for the Finnish event. Although Lindroos left the road on stages six and eight, Mikkelsen set a number of impressive times and was 15th overall when he hit trouble.
“I tried to fulfil the team goals to get to the finish quickly but without accidents,” said the 22-year-old. “On the whole I really enjoyed the weekend with Volkswagen Motorsport. The atmosphere in the team is fantastic and I hope that it wasn’t my last rally for them.”
Germany’s Christian Riedemann and Dutch promise Hans Weijs take over VW’s Fabias for the all-asphalt Rallye Deutschland from 18-21 August.