Kubica exit due to pace note error

Robert Kubica has blamed a pace-note misunderstanding for a crash on Saturday’s second stage that looks to have ended his World Rally Car debut at Wales Rally GB.

The Pole, accompanied by new co-driver Michel Ferrara, restarted this morning after rolling his Citroen DS3 World Rally Car out of Friday’s competition when he misjudged a braking point on the opening stage.

The pair began Saturday’s leg with the eighth fastest time through Gartheiniog, but left the road on a right-hand corner 3.7km into the Dyfi test that followed, ending up more than 60 metres down a hillside.

“We hit big rock but I think we just had a misunderstanding in the pace notes,” Kubica told wrc.com. “In a place where I should be braking I was still flat, and by the time I saw the corner it was too late. I tried to recover, but the speed difference was too big. We had a sort of blackout in communication.”

It was an ignominious end to the WRC season for Kubica, who clinched the FIA WRC 2 championship title last month alongside former co-driver, Maciek Baran.

But when Baran announced his retirement shortly afterwards, Ferrara was drafted in for Wales, and the pair had only a brief pre-event test to get used to the new car, and a new pace note system delivered in Italian.

Reflecting on the event, Kubica said: “This rally was difficult for me because I haven’t done very many kilometres and I had to change co-driver. It wasn’t easy for me, or for my co-driver, and we didn’t have the best luck here - but that’s part of the game.

“Yesterday I had a mistake on the mud, we just slipped off the road, and today we had, yeah, a kind of blackout in communication. It’s quite disappointing, we came here to gain experience, and we just end up twice in the ditch.”

Kubica added that he didn’t expect to restart again on Sunday.