Retirement a double blow for Wittmann

Franz Wittmann says he is unable to pinpoint exactly why he crashed out of Rally d’Italia-Sardegna yesterday.

Austrian Wittmann was in sixth overall, 2.2s behind Thierry Neuville in fifth, after four stages when he hit trouble in a right-left combination of corners halfway through the 14.53-kilometre Gonnosnò stage.

The Interwetten Racing driver exited the right-hander too quickly, hit a rock with his Peugeot 207’s left-rear wheel before slipping off the road and rolling once, thankfully without injury to neither he nor co-driver Klaus Wicha.

“I simply can’t explain why this happened since we didn’t have any problem at this spot the first time around,” said the 26-year-old. “I think it was a mistake in the pacenotes and we were that fateful bit too fast the second time round. This retirement obviously hurts because we couldn’t score points or gain experience.”