No Mexico restart for Novikov

Evgeny Novikov will take no further part on Rally Guanajuato Mexico following his exit on stage 13 today (Saturday).

The Russian was in a comfortable fifth overall on his first start in the world championship for more than a year when he damaged the radiator on his Ford Fiesta RS WRC during a small impact.

After analysing data retrieved from the car, engineers from Novikov’s M-Sport Stobart Ford World Rally Team determined that it would be unwise for the 20-year-old to attempt to restart on Sunday after his car’s engine overheated when the radiator lost its water supply.

“It was a small impact but unfortunately we will not restart,” said Novikov. “It was only at 10kph and I did not expect the damage to be so bad but the water came out of the engine and it overheated. The engineers looked at the data and said it would not be good to start again.”

Novikov continued: “It’s very disappointing because it had been a good rally. I saw too late the right corner and knew it would not be my corner. I was not so lucky on this rally but I am confident for Italy [my next event] when I have some pacenotes from before and will also know the car better.”