Mikkelsen proud despite exit

Andreas Mikkelsen’s challenge on Philips Rally Argentina is over after the Norwegian was forced out when his Volkswagen Motorsport Skoda Fabia Super 2000 suffered a front-right suspension failure on stage 15.

Mikkelsen was in a close fight for seventh position with team-mate Sebastien Ogier when he began to lose time seven kilometres into the 17.41-kilometre Mina Clavero/Giulio Cesare stage.

Speaking to Julian Porter on WRC Live, the 22-year-old said: “I thought I had a puncture because the car was turning very bad into left-hand corners. It got worse and worse and suddenly out of nothing the damper came up through the bonnet. It was strange because I didn’t hit anything so basically it was a technical failure.”

Despite his premature exit, Mikkelsen said he was satisfied with his performance alongside co-driver Ola Floene on his first appearance on the South American round of the FIA World Rally Championship powered by Nokia.

“Both myself and Ola and the whole team have done an amazing job and we are very happy,” said Mikkelsen. “We came here showing good speed and matched my team-mate Sebastien Ogier. Also we showed a lot of consistency throughout the whole weekend with no big mistakes. Sadly we’ve not been able to make it to the finish but this rally and I must say we are very proud of the job we have done here.”

On hearing of Mikkelsen’s retirement, Ogier said: “It would be better to have a fight until the end. For sure it’s a shame because we are close to the end and it was a great battle.”