Heikkilä’s strong start in WRC Estonia hindered by ruts in the second pass

Mikko Heikkilä is sixth in the WRC2 category after the opening day of Delfi Rally Estonia. Despite a strong start to the event, Heikkilä’s second pass of Friday’s stages were hindered by a suspected time loss in the ruts.

Finnish rally driver Mikko Heikkilä is sixth in the WRC2 category in the Delfi Rally Estonia after the event’s opening day of Friday. Heikkilä’s gap to the lead after around 100 special stage kilometres driven so far is 10,3 seconds with two full days of rallying still left in the event.

The TGS Motorsport Skoda driver opened the rally strongly with the fastest time on the opening stage of the event. At the halfway mark of Friday, Heikkilä was running second in category, but on the second loop Heikkilä lost time to ruts finishing the day in sixth.

- Time-wise the event started well, even though I’m not completely satisfied with my driving. It turned around in the second pass of the stages – driving feels better, but times don’t reflect it. I feel like we are losing time in the ruts, as is evident from the last stage of the day: the time was better as there were less ruts, Heikkilä said.

For the second – and longest – day of the rally Heikkilä aims to find a cure for the issues hindering the Finn’s pace on Friday.

-We will need to figure out something for tomorrow’s second pass. I’m hopeful we will find some kind of a solution. It’s odd, everything goes well on the first pass and then we lose time on the second run despite everything feeling OK, Heikkilä commented.

Delfi Rally Estonia is held from 17th to 19th of July in Tarto, Estonia. The event consists of 18 special stages and 301,8 special stage kilometres. Mikko Heikkilä heads into the stages with number 37 in the WRC2 category. The rally is shown live via Rally.tv streaming service.  

Delfi Rally Estonia results SS7/18 – WRC2

1. Robert Virves            52:28.3              EST       Skoda Fabia RS Rally2

2. Teemu Suninen       +2.5                     FIN        Toyota GR Yaris Rally2

3. Roope Korhonen    +5.0                     FIN        Toyota GR Yaris Rally2

4. Jaspar Vaher             +7.4                     EST       Toyota GR Yaris Rally2

5. Emil Lindholm         +7.8                     FIN        Skoda Fabia RS Rally2

6. Mikko Heikkilä       +10.3                  FIN       Skoda Fabia RS Rally2