Pontus Tidemand second in Rally Finland

After a slow start on Thursday for a Pontus who had the flu so did he finishing his Rally Finland in the best possible way and won all of Saturday’s special stages and finished in second place overall in the third round of the WRC Academy.

– Saturday was clearly the best day for me, I’ve worked really hard with concentration all weekend because I had flu, But it felt like I came up in my “normal” pace last day, says Pontus

During Thursday evening that was run three stages where Pontus along with co-driver Stig Rune Skjaermoen had trouble finding the pace. Pontus started the contest with flu that made him weak and he had it hard to keep concentration. With a stage-win, a fifth and sixth time that was enough to an sixth place after day one I WRC Academy.

On Friday it was a much more focused Pontus who was in the top on the first stage with a third time. During the day, the fast pace continued, with a stage-win and three second places so was Pontus in second place before the last day.

–Friday did go really well, driving has been much better even if I was a bit tired and not at my peak performance., says Pontus

On Saturday, so ran the last six stages in Rally Finland 2012 and the last stage was the legendary Ounienpohja where Pontus won his fifth stage-win in a row.

Just stage-wins are an important part in the WRC Academy because of that you get one point for every stage-win beyond the points you get for your overall standing.

– I did not hunted stage-wins the last day, the good stage-times came automatically when I start to feel better and could find my regular pace, says Pontus

With six stage-wins that resulted in one point each and 18 points for second place went Pontus up to an overall fourth place in the overall standings of the 2012-year’s WRC Academy/Junior World Championship.

– Next event is Rally Germany and that is my first World Rally on asphalt and it will be even harder to be in the top then, says Pontus

Rally Finland WRC ACADEMY			Diff prev	Diff 1´st
1	E. EVANS	2:34:07.7
2	P. TIDEMAND	2:35:03.0	+55.3	+55.3
3	B. REEVES	2:35:35.1	+32.1	+1:27.4
4	J. SUAREZ	2:36:22.5	+47.4	+2:14.8
5	J. MACCRONE	2:37:09.7	+47.2	+3:02.0