Mikkelsen reveals Corsica disappointment

Andreas Mikkelsen has described the moment when he realised his bid for a podium finish on Tour de Corse-E.Leclerc was all but over following his puncture on stage 12 of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge event.

Mikkelsen, driving a Škoda UK Motorsport Fabia Super 2000, was beating Freddy Loix in the battle for third place when his car suffered a front-right deflation.

“I’ve never been so disappointed on a rally as I am now,” said the 21-year-old. “We were going well, taking the same lines as before and driving at the same speed. Suddenly I could feel there was no air in the front-right tyre. I was really surprised, because I knew we hadn’t hit anything because I felt no bump. We stopped on the left-hand side of the road so we could change the wheel, but it was really hard to get the wheel stuns off because they had expanded in the heat.”

Mikkelsen will start the final two stages in eighth overall, albeit still in contention for a sixth-place finish. However, even without the delay changing the damaged tyre Mikkelsen conceded that he and co-driver Ola Fløene had would have struggled to figure higher than sixth in the final classification.

“If we’d changed the wheel normally in 90 seconds, we’d be in sixth, and I think we should be able to finish in that position anyway.”