Mikko Heikkilä has retired from the Delfi Rally Estonia after contesting for a podium for the majority of the event. Issues after landing of a jump on Sunday morning cost the Finn any chance of podium, and the decision to retire was made to ensure that Heikkilä is on the starting line of WRC Latvia.
Mikko Heikkilä and co-driver Kristian Temonen have retired from the Delfi Rally Estonia. The Step Five Motorsport driver was running third for a long time in the fourth round of the ERC calendar and set off to the final day of the rally in fourth position. A landing after a jump however proved to be a decisive one.
-The car’s engine shut down after a landing and did not restart at all. I took all power off and back on which got the engine running again, but we drove carefully to the end of the stage. We lost a lot of time trying to restart the engine, which relegated us down to seventh position, Heikkilä recapped the events of the SS12.
Heikkilä’s gap from P3 increased from a few seconds up to almost a minute due to the events of the stage. The Michelin driver made a hard decision during the day’s service.
-It was better to call it quits, there wasn’t anything to achieve for us. As we’re not in the title fight, we did not want to take any unnecessary risks for P4, but there isn’t any point in just cruising through the stages either. This way we’ll make sure we are on the starting line in WRC Latvia in two weeks, Heikkilä explained.
Heikkilä’s focus is then in the next event of his competitive calendar, WRC Tet Rally Latvia and the following Secto Rally Finland.
-We’ll analyse what happened and gear up for Latvia. We’ll aim to be even stronger there, Heikkilä promised.
Mikko Heikkilä’s competitive season continues with WRC Tet Rally Latvia in 18th to 21st of July.
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