Novikov reveals Sardinia crash woe

Russian flyer Evgeny Novikov has revealed his frustration for crashing on Friday’s penultimate stage of Rally d’Italia Sardegna.

The 20-year-old had been in contention for a podium finish in his Ford Fiesta RS WRC only to roll into retirement approximately seven kilometres from the finish of stage seven. He blamed the crash on a misheard pace note.

“I don’t know why but I just heard the wrong pace note,” said Novikov, who held third overall at Friday’s midday halt on only his second start of the season. “We just went too fast on a corner and went off the road. The car landed on its wheels and I hope the damage is not too big damage and we restart [today].

“Everything was good with the pace notes, it’s completely my mistake. I just heard like a wrong distance. It was on a right corner, quite fast. We were maybe 15-20 metres down from the road.”

Although Novikov’s performance had been hugely impressive up until that point, he says it will count for nothing when the rally finishes in Olbia on Sunday afternoon.

“Being third overall was good but nobody will remember that, they will remember I went off,” said Novikov, whos mechanics worked until 02:00hrs this morning to repair his car for Saturday’s restart under SupeRally. “The main thing is the result and the finish and unfortunately we lost it. But it has been a good day for learning, we’ve checked the pace notes so the experience is good.”

Novikov was one of several drivers to fail to complete Friday’s stages: Jari-Matti Latvala stopped on stage two with damage sustained in a crash on the previous run; a throttle problem caused MINI WRC Team ace Kris Meeke to go off the road on stage three; Henning Solberg retired with engine failure; Brazil World Rally Team’s Daniel Oliveira and Munchi’s Ford star Federico Villagra crashed out, Peter van Merksteijn Sr went off the road and his Citroen DS3 WRC was struck by another car, thereby incurring more damage, while Patrik Flodin’s Super 2000-specification MINI was hit by turbo failure and retired.