M-Sport Ford World Rally Team Principal Richard Millener says he hopes that the FIA World Rally Championship did Craig Breen and his family proud by putting on a fantastic rally event in Croatia this weekend.
Breen, who drove for M-Sport in 2022 lost his life in a crash in the build up to the event with Hyundai last week.
Millener commented saying:
What a hard weekend for us all, the loss of Craig was felt by us all during the rally but I hope we did him proud with the many tributes to him and a great event played out over the course of the weekend. For us, second place is a really good result. Ott showed some great speed and times in the car, but we still have some work to do to make him more comfortable in certain conditions. I know the team will work as hard as they can on that, but their hard work since the season began has paid off here, so thank you to each and every one of them. Adrien also deserves a mention, what a fantastic drive in the Rally2 proving how good a driver he is and how much speed the car has. I would like to finish by saying a huge well done to the Croatia Rally organisers for all their hard work this weekend.
In the rally, Ott Tanak had a fantastic event as he ended the event on the podium in second place behind event winner Elfyn Evans and speaking following the action, Tanak said:
The car has the pace, we can see that from the times, but the operating window seems very small and it has been difficult for me to understand where the sweet spot of the car is. Up until now the team has been working very hard and I have managed to stay in touch with the competition but we need to continue working hard on finding more so we can keep involved in this exciting battle for the championship. I am happy to be only four points off the lead of the championship and second this weekend is still a very good result along with the two stage wins. The test for Portugal is next week and now my focus turns to preparing as best as possible and working with the team to get us as prepared as possible for the next important event.”
Pierre-Louis Loubet, Seventh Overall, said:
“I am pleased with the performance, some places we have been fast, showing the potential is there, but I have missed some consistency. I made a bad tyre choice on Friday losing us time, however on Saturday it went well and we were up to fourth but unfortunately with a couple of issues we dropped to seventh by the end of the event. But, let’s keep positive, I know if I can get the consistency back I can finish in the top five or even the podium in the coming events.”
The next event on the FIA World Rally Championship calendar is Rally Portugal which takes place from May 11-14.
