14.10.2012 Mikko Pajunen forced to retire in Sanremo, ruining his changes of cup title
Mikko Pajunen has been competing this season in the Italian Rally Championship. He drove in GIMA-Autosport Renault Twingo with his experienced co-driver Kaj Lindtröm, and was chasing the cup title of this category.
Pajunen was leading the championship before this weekend's final event, the Sanremo asphalt rally. The Finn from Jyväskylä was the fastest in his category after the opening stage, but a spin on stage four and a resulting retirement ruined his changes of winning the title.
- The first three stages we drove pretty well, even after choosing the wrong tyres. The fourth one was driven in the dark with a reversed driving order. There was a faster car behind us which was catching us, and always on the long stretches I could see his lights in my mirror. I lost my concentration and span out of the road. It was a pretty harmless spin, but the car got stuck in a ditch. There were no spectators there and we couldnt get the car back on to the road. Eventually some people arrive and we managed to carry on. The car didnt suffer any major damage apart from some minor knock to the rear. But we were in that ditch for so long that we went over the maximum time delay allowed and had to retire, told Pajunen.
Pajunens 13-point lead in the championship was not enough because the Sanremo rally was won by Fabrizzo Andolfi, sealing him the title. Pajunen and Lindström were eventually third in the final championship standings.
- This championship gave us a lot of experience on driving on asphalt. That was one of our main goals before coming here. In addition we got to drive in four different cars (Renault Twingo, Renault Clio, Subaru Impreza and Ford Fiesta S2000) this season and got plenty of competitive kilometres in various competitions. This was the end of our season according to the original plan, but lets see if we will drive another rally. Perhaps we will, perhaps we wont, said Pajunen.
Text: Miiro Koivula
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