WRC RallyRACC Catalunya: Pontus Tidemand and Emil Axelsson - Q&A
RallyRACC Catalunya WRC2 post-event press conference with class winners, Pontus Tidemand and Emil Axelsson
Driver / co-driver: Pontus Tidemand and Emil Axelsson (Skoda Fabia R5).
Press conference
Q:
Pontus, congratulations on the win - you were so dominant on the gravel. Did you expect that?
Pontus Tidemand:
Firstly, big congratulations to Nasser [Al-Attiyah] and Mathieu [Baumel - after retaining the WRC2 title] - that's an impressive result. But yes, on Friday it was a good start for us. To be honest, it was better than we expected from the first stage. But doing the Asia Pacific Championship has given us a lot of experience on a lot of different surfaces. It was not so easy, but we had good training to give us good practice for the Friday.
Q:
Esapekka Lappi came here looking for the title, but you got into the lead - that must have felt good?
Pontus Tidemand:
Yes, of course. After Corsica when we went off the road, the feeling was not so good. This was good revenge and the team and engineers are happy. This is good for the confidence for the future. The feeling now is really good. We fly to China for the final APRC round with a good feeling for the long plane trip.
Q:
You had a shot at the title, are you disappointed?
Pontus Tidemand:
Yes, but to be honest I was not thinking too much about this. If it should be like this then we could go to GB and I needed a good performance there as well. Hopefully we get a full [WRC 2] season next year and it will all work well. There's really good co-operation in the team, we just need to keep working now.
Q:
Is WRC 2 the plan for next season?
Pontus Tidemand:
I don't know. We will see, I hope so. I think it would be a good programme.
Q:
Emil, how does that feel?
Emil Axelsson:
It was good, it would have been even nicer to continue the championship, but we must be happy when we look at our speed on the first loop - that was good. We need to keep that in mind.
Q:
And happy with the tarmac?
Emil Axelsson:
We should be, we got the mileage and we know where we can improve. We know what to work on.
Q:
This has been a good year for you...
Emil Axelsson:
Absolutely. Except four races, we have been on the podium and tonight we go to China for another chance to shine with Skoda.
