Kes RV foorumis ei käi, siis neile panen siia Bluufordi hea ülevaate Montes tehtud tööst. Mega töömaht ja Otil on ikka super taustatiim Hannese, Martini, Kuldari ja Tarmo näol (eks seal Toyotas ole teisi eestlasi veel paju).
Well, this was my first ever Monte Carlo rally and it was nice but very long We arrived very late during Sunday night and I had 3 days of recce with Toni first and then with Martin and Kuldar. Nice. I found it really important to understand the weather to learn the stages etc.
Wednesday was really easy day, SD conditions were very easy for me.
Thursady evening was slightly more complicated but with Monday recce, I consider it was reatively easy for me and chosen tyre was right. But this night was crazy, it was long day and service very late and next day was expected to be the most tricky. So , engineers left around 2AM and I worked until 03:30 AM and was not still entirely satisfied. So, then I slept in service truck in sofa until 6AM when first engineers arrived and I also continued with my work.
Morning loop was almost OK, I think with better decision we would have been 5-7 sec faster in stage nr 4, but nothing serious.
Afternoon loop was perfect, all as expected.
By eveing, it was almost sure that next day will be snow and this was the message before the last service. Finally I had time to drive back to my hotel and take a shower. Then I slept an hour, woke up 10PM, took one beer with gravel crews and prepared Saturday until 2 PM, at 5PM I had breakfast and I drove to service where I started at 05:45.
Saturday morning was perfect, exactly as expected, preparation for that day was good. Afternoon was also perfect, no mistakes. We had some discussion regarding last stage with engineers and it was so, so, finally we agreed some kind of solution and it wokred out fine. Then I had to drive to Monaco, it was long drive, I arrived there around 10PM and then I had short discussion with engineers and little walk around the seaside, because I could not fell in sleep. So, finally I managed to mess up with alarm clock and I woke up when I had to start breakfast. So, no breakfast and run to Service instead. Weather was easy, but the extension of black ice was really big unknown factor for me. So, big thanks for the gravel crews once more. We managed to cover almost everything, when I had lack of info or not so clear info, they filled all the caps. Without them, the weather looked more like supersoft + soft but they convinced to play it safe, so, some studs were really good decision! Also for the second loop. So, On Sunday, I would say that I lacked a bit of preparation (no recce on those stages) and my hands were a bit short for such conditions.
Finally, I had to drive Nice to pick up Martin and Kuldar and I didn’t see the powerstage as our plane left just after 3PM already, otherwise, WRC all live is really nice addition!
By the way, Toyota team is really nice. Working with such a professionals is pure enjoyment! I like this "village"

PS! That other Estonian in M-Sport was doing quite OK, he made some mistakes, and I was able to see where he might make mistakes as he used same methods as I did before (well, he had to produce info in similar way as I did there, and quess what I changed my approach this year and went one step further, which is secret) but otherwise I rate his perfomance as quite OK
Interesting season will be ahead