We have completed Rally Catalunya after a weekend of highs and lows. However, our performance and times on the Friday gravel stages were very pleasing and gives us a lot of confidence moving forward to our next rally – Wales Rally GB.

As usual here on the gravel stages in Catalunya, the calm sunny Friday morning presented a lot of dust challenges following the first car on the road. In some places it was like hitting a white wall and literally not being able to see past the bonnet of the car. We pushed through it and trusted the pacenotes, and we were rewarded with our first stage win on SS3, beating World Champion Sebastian Ogier by 2.1 seconds. It is great to get the monkey off our back for the first stage win, but now we want many more.

This put us into 3rd heading into the long 32km mix tarmac/gravel stage and really wanted to push hard to maintain our position. However, on the very first corner of the stage I pushed a little much, running wide and clipping the bank. Unfortunately this gave us 2 punctures, which we had to stop and change. In hindsight we were lucky to get away with the moment (video of it can be seen on our Facebook page). This combined with a time costly spin in the afternoon meant we lost 6 and half minutes and put us out of contention. However, we were very happy to be in the top 4 on all other stages and battling within tenths of seconds for stage wins. I am now feeling very comfortable in the car on gravel and we have a good set-up. This we hope will bode well for Wales Rally GB, although if it is a typical wet slippery event, it will be a different kettle of fish.

The tarmac stages on Saturday and Sunday were however more challenging. This was our first rally on tarmac since 12 months ago and combined with a new tyre, it took quite some adapting. Throughout the two days we struggled with a lot of understeer, which our two teammates, Thierry Neuville and Dani Sordo were also. This in turn was overheating our front tyres a lot and made the car very squirmy to drive, particularly in the second half of stages. We made many changes throughout the 2 days and learnt some new things with the car, which is good information for the future. Also despite only being inside the Top 10 stage times, we were not too far away from Thierry and Dani. Last year we were on average 0.8 seconds per km from them when they were winning stages, and this year in the same car we were approx. 0.3-0.4 seconds per km, so a good improvement. However, I still personally have a lot to learn on tarmac and this is something that I will work hard on in the future.

To recover to 9th at the end of the rally and in the points was a nice bonus, but we have made another step forward this weekend.

A huge thanks to our team, engineer and mechanics who did a great job all weekend, especially converting the car from gravel to tarmac spec on Friday night. Also to Piero Liatti and Fabrizia Pons who kindly helped us out with gravel notes. Their wealth of experience was a big help and their feedback will also help me improve for the future. Also a big thanks to John and Katie for the first class job they continue to do, and everyone back home supporting us. We received a lot of messages on Friday and this was hugely appreciated.

Today we are back on the gravel testing for Wales Rally GB. Really looking forward to having a good test and getting a good base set-up for a rally where we hope to push for a good result.