Sardinia: Aava and BettegaUrmo Aava and Alessandro Bettega will be driving for points in the FIA Junior Rally Championship in Sardinia. They answered a few questions before the racing beings in earnest tomorrow.
Q: Urmo, welcome. How confident are you feeling on
this event? The last rally in Portugal you had quite a lot of bad luck
URMO AAVA: First of all, hello. I am quite confident because we have the speed here. It is a different impression here – it's different but I am confident. It's tough on tyres and on the car. It is very easy to lose 5 or 10 minutes, after that it's very difficult to try to win.
Q: You must feel that sometimes you have been very unlucky indeed. Portugal wasn't the first time that you have lost the lead. Is this a rally that is going to change all that?
UA: We try to do something different, we cannot continue like this (Portugal). Maybe we need to slow down a little, wait and not crash too much.
Q: How much experience do you have of this rally?
UA: We have been here four times and I have quite a lot of experience but it changes every year. Not one stage is the same like last year. Friday is rougher than last year, so this will be very difficult.
Q: We've heard some news recently that you will be driving a Mitsubishi World Rally Car – what is your programme for this car and what are you expecting to achieve?
UA: My program starts from Greece, and after that we are going to Barcelona and then to Finland, then in early August we go to New Zealand. We are saying that it is possible, but it won't be so easy to learn.
Q: Are you going to be doing any testing before your first event? How difficult do you think it is going to be to make the step up to a World Rally Car?
UA: It won't be so easy, there is still a lot to learn. It is difficult to set up a rally car. Luckily we have solved a problem at least for this rally. For sure it's not easy, but for the future it will get a little bit easier for our program.
Q: Alessandro, this is your home rally – how does it feel to be competing here?
ALLESANDRO BETTEGA: It feels likes I've been at home because I have a lot of spectators here and some friends and even some marshals; like being next to home.
Q: Is this a rally you like? Have you driven here a lot before?
AB: Yes, I have been doing this rally since 2001 when it was part of the Italian Championship – Costa Smeralda Rally, and I had my second win here and another win last year. This is one that I prefer, yeah.
Q: Do you get a lot of support from the fans here?
AB: Yeah for sure, there are lot of spectators waving the Italian flags and it gives you a lot of confidence when you drive see flags and the spectators.
Q: How is the development of the Ford Fiesta Super 1600 going this year? You had some problems in Portugal, but do you feel confident that they have been sorted out for this rally?
AB: I don't know, we will see on the stages. We did a test about two weeks ago, about 100 kilometres, and we changed a few things a little bit, we changed the rear springs. The car is now a little bit better, not much. But without it vibrating we see how it goes... it's a tough job ahead in the next few days. I think we have to race with the conditions and drive faster where you can drive faster on some stages, and then back off on other stages when the roads are not fast.
Source FIA
