Fisher back in contention after second place in Poland

After a non finish on the season’s opening round in Portugal, Alastair is now up to fourth and right back in the battle for the title after securing the runners up position on a gruelling Rally Poland.

“Second was a good result,” he said. “We took the approach that we really needed to finish the rally and we were quite cautious with our pace notes. We knew we had to get round and keep in the hunt for the championship.” Rally Poland is a new event for the WRC calendar and with very few drivers having experience of the loose surface roads it provided an stern test for some of the world’s best young drivers.  Alastair made a steady start and was lying fourth after a short opening day.  Saturday’s stages saw the rally go over the border into Lithuania, but with the stages cutting up badly on the first pass the repeat loop over the same stages had to be cancelled.  Despite the loss in mileage Alastair and co driver Gordon Noble leapt to second with the help of two fastest stage times, despite a couple of incidents that cost them time.  They were also aided by accidents to Simone Tempestini and Martin Koci, who fell foul of the tricky conditions. Stéphane Lefebvre, the winner of the opening round, was once again heading the WRC3 category but Alastair had established a cushion behind him as he went into the final day’s action.  Another steady run through the final day’s stages gave him the result he needed.

“It was a long week with 24 stages over four days of competition,” said Alastair. “The stages were very, very fast and technical and you had to be very committed. There were a couple of stages in Lithuania that were really badly cut up and they didn’t run the second time and we were quite grateful for that because it was quite sore on the smaller cars. We were in a battle for third and then one of the fellas got a puncture and the other fella rolled. It was tricky rallying and people were going to have problems. Lefebvre was there last year and he probably a bit of an advantage in that sense and he had a very clean rally. He pushed hard on a couple of stages and took a bit of time. We were maybe pulling him in slightly on Saturday morning and then we had a bit of an excursion into a field on the 35 kilometre stage and we calmed ourselves after that. It was actually the same place Meeke went off. There was a bump on the outside of a four right and it sent us straight into a field. It probably cost us about 10 or 15 seconds. A couple of stages later we had a puncture and then we bust a shock as well. You had to manage all those wee problems because that was the sort of rally it was.” The championship now moves on to the high speed forestry roads of Rally Finland, and Alastair knows he will have to produce another good result to keep his title hopes alive.

“We need a big result out there, and we maybe need Lefebvre to have a few problems to cut down the gap to him,” he said. “We’ve been on the pace in Finland the last few years and Poland was the sort of rally that got everyone in good shape for Finland because it was so fast. I would say everyone will be going hard.”