WRC2 CHAMPION 2022

Emil Lindholm Emil Lindholm

WRC2 CHAMPION 2022

Emil Lindholm Emil Lindholm

WRC2 CHAMPION 2022

Emil Lindholm Emil Lindholm

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Lindholm retires due to a technical failure from the leading position in Italy

10 August 2020

Team GRX’s Emil Lindholm and Mikael Korhonen had to retire due to a technical failure during the road section of the Citta di Arezzo - Valtiberina rally, part of the Italian gravel rally championship series. The Finnish duo clocked top times for the two special stages of the day but their rally unfortunately ended just before the last special stage. Italian driver Paolo Andreucci took the victory of the rally. Lindholm and Korhonen will travel directly from Florence, Italy to Riga, Latvia where they will compete for the ERC points next weekend.

Emil Lindholm, who drove Italian HK Racing’s Škoda Fabia R5, was already on his way to win the Citta di Arezzo-Valtiberina rally when a technical failure stopped the Finnish twosome in the road section before the last special stage. Lindholm's Škoda slowed down and the engine no longer responded to the throttle. Before the retirement Lindholm clocked top times for both of the special stages of the day, which increased his lead to 15.2 seconds. The retirement was naturally upsetting for the young Finnish driver. Him winning the competition would have been the first win for the Indian MRF Tyres in Europe.

“We had really bad luck on our side. Somehow it feels like winning rallies are just out of my reach. If I don’t make any mistakes then the technology fails us. We don’t know exactly what happened. The team stayed behind to try and figure it out. Maybe we'll find out what happened to the car later”, Lindholm says.

“Our car was going only 15 km/h, downhill 20 km/h. We got to the last service but couldn’t locate the fault. We drove about 1.5 km from the service and when our speed did not exceed over 15 km/h we decided to retire. We would not have had time to get to the start of the special stage let alone finish it”, Lindholm said disappointedly after the rally.

“Very upsetting especially on behalf of MRF Tyres. Their first win in Europe was not achieved this weekend. Our tyres worked exceptionally well as they did two weeks ago in Rome”, Lindholm reminds.

Lindholm and Korhonen will travel directly from Florence, Italy to Riga, Latvia where they will compete for the European Rally Championship points next weekend. Lindholm, driving for the first time in Latvia, will get to drive Toni Gardemeister's TGS Worldwide’s Škoda Fabia R5 Evo once again.

“The surface of gravel roads in Latvia is different than in Italy. We know now that on hard gravel roads our tyres work great. MRF Tyres got important data and information from Italy compared to its competitors. Roads in Latvia have similar profile compared to Finland. However there aren’t as many height differences. I think we are going to have a good and fun rally ahead for us”, says Lindholm.

“The competition is tough but we are aiming to be on the top five. We have a good comparison (Craig Breen) inside of the MRF Tyres team which we can compare our speed to. We are continuing our season with a good feeling”, Lindholm says.

In the second rally of the European Rally Championship series, Liepaja Rally, will have ten gravel special stages driven with a total length of 177.87 km. The qualifying stage, which determines the starting order of the rally, will be run on Friday, August 14th starting from 5:30 p.m. The rally will start on Saturday at 11:55. The program of the day has four special stages with a total length of 90.21 km. The rally will continue on Sunday from 9:00. The schedule for the closing day includes six special stages; with a total length of 87.66 km. Winners are expected to the finish line on Sunday night at 6:30 p.m.