Neuville and Sordo are out as Rally Portugal bites back

First stage of the day, and we already lost two of the leading WRC crews. Dani Sordo crashed out of the contention, and he will be massively disappointed, but one thing is certain – he was a changed man and new driver in Portugal. This is what Dani should take from Portugal, and build the rest of the season on it!

Thierry Neuville misjudged the braking point to a corner, but unlike many similar errors by other drivers, Thierry braked too early and even turned in too early and too deep. His Fiesta hit a tree and damaged front suspension.

For Robert Kubica, day 2 of Rally Portugal is even more special then day 1. He lost that special gear change paddle function and has to use his right arm to change gears manually, same as everyone else.

[quote]”Nice test for my right arm”, said Kubica at the end of SS 6, and on SS 7 he extended those comments: “Our regular gear changing system is much harder and stiffer to use than in regular systems in cars. We also don’t have handbrake, so we are struggling in hairpins. We have one stage to go, we’ll see how we cope”.[/quote]