Double boost for Ostberg in Estonia

Mads Ostberg has said that finding a good set-up on his Ford Fiesta RS WRC for Neste Oil Rally Finland meant more to him than winning the Auto24 Rally Estonia last weekend.

Ostberg, a frontrunner in the World Rally Championship with the M-Sport Stobart Ford squad, was using the high-speed gravel event to prepare for Finland’s WRC counter at the end of the month.

After beating ex-WRC regular Markko Martin by 24 seconds following 162 kilometres of competitive action, Ostberg said: “The most important thing for me was to find a good set-up and to test the car before the next WRC event. We tried different set-ups on shakedown, day one and on Saturday’s stages and we found a set-up that I am now happy with. But it is also a competition, and it’s always fun to fight.”

Ostberg, from Norway, completed Friday’s opening leg 0.1s behind Martin before moving in front on Saturday when he won all six stages.

“It was a hard fight with Markko, he was faster than us on Friday,” said the 23-year-old, who was co-driven as ever by Swede Jonas Andersson. “We just wanted to be in the car, get the right speed and to get through the first day. We did that, and that worked out well.”

He continued: “I am very pleased with the weekend and the job Jonas and I have done - it has been really good. We had good pacenotes and the driving has been great. We are well prepared for Finland. We want to get on the podium again, and I believe Finland can be a good opportunity for us.”

Martin, who drove a Ford Focus WRC, added: “There was nothing to do, Mads was faster. Yesterday we had a feeling that we can fight for the win. Today it was different. But our main goal was to have fun driving on the south Estonian roads.”

In addition to Ostberg, several other WRC regulars were in action. Super 2000 world championship stars Martin Prokop and Karl Kruuda finished third and fourth respectively. Dennis Kuipers switched back from his Fiesta RS WRC to drive an S2000 version and finished eighth. Craig Breen was the leading WRC Academy runner taking part and finished 29th, a slender 1.2s in front of Alastair Fisher.