Matthew Wilson has recalled the moment when triumph turned to despair for him and his M-Sport Stobart Ford World Rally Team mechanics on Rally Guanajuato Mexico last week.
Wilson was in an impressive fourth overall when an electrical problem forced his retirement from Friday’s opening day.
After his mechanics had worked on his Fiesta RS WRC until 04:00hrs on Saturday morning, Wilson was preparing to start day two’s first stage when the electrical glitch returned and resulted in Wilson and co-driver Scott Martin’s early exit from the world championship round.
“When I got a message to say the car was running and I would be driving on Saturday I couldn’t believe it after they had told me about the state of the wiring loom,” said Wilson. “But the mechanics just wanted to have a go at repairing it. They were so pleased at ten to four in the morning when they fired it up because all the effort they put in looked like it was going to be worth it but obviously it just wasn’t to be.”
Wilson continued: “It was unbelievable what they did and I’ve got nothing to say to them other than thank you. It’s just a shame we couldn’t have done two or three stages and set some decent times. The lads did the best they could but the same thing happened just as we plugged the intercom in to prepare for the start of the stage. We sort of half expected it would happen like that.”
A decision was taken not to attempt a second repair of Wilson’s car to enable him to restart on Sunday to allow his mechanics to begin the process of readying the car for Vodafone Rally de Portugal later this month.
“It’s a tight turnaround for Portugal so it made sense to get the car stripped while in Mexico to save time when we get back to the UK,” said Wilson.