Gardemeister (Finland) was disappointed when he dropped more than a
minute
in the first stage of the day due to a puncture, but he battled
back to move
an incredible 14 places up the leaderboard by the close of play.
The
torrential rain ahead of the event had washed a section of the
Waitomo stage
away, forcing the organisers to split the stage in two in order to
avoid the
worst affected area. Despite the terrible weather ahead of the
event, the
entire opening leg was run in glorious sunshine, with temperatures
closing
on 20 degrees in this southern hemisphere winter.
Car news - Suzuki SX4 WRC n.11 (Gardemeister), n.12 (Andersson):
Both cars ran without any technical fault through the opening day's
138
kilometres of flat-out action. Gardemeister's only trouble was... //
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