Hi all,

In the end everything went great at NZ. Already after the test I felt very good because I was reasonably confident with the car. All the mileage in the car at Jordan helped me to get familiar with the Fiesta and to drive fast enough.

Stages at NZ were great. Especially the Friday stages up in the north from Auckland. We would have had a reasonably steady day on Friday but in the morning time we found a trouble from the engine which caused lack of throttle response during the day. Before the day´s remote service it went so bad that I couldn´t move the car anymore at all. We were having phone conversation with our engineer to find out how we could get the car moving again. We were on the phone for almost 15 minutes to try to solve out what was wrong. The way how we found the trouble was quite like to the last thing what we can do anymore to try and if that was not working then our rally would end. I think our team is one of the best in the world, my engineer Tomo is highly experienced and he managed to get the solution and explained it to me. Also I was happy that me and Mika worked well together and managed to fix the trouble.

I can say that moment in the road section was very painful for my head. However just after we made it work I forgot the pain quite soon. So in the end everything was ok.

Now I have been working on my company in Finland two days after I went home. Yesterday was a holiday all over the Finland. I like fishing very much and will be staying out by the lake over the whole weekend. It is very relaxing to go close to the nature and get fresh fish and cook it by myself.

After the nice weekend I feel happy to start to prepare for Rally Portugal next week. It will be very enjoyable after Rally NZ to start there. We just need to forget NZ, now we are facing again a new rally for me. It will also be new battle and we can be sure everyone is keen to be faster than us in Portugal. We will be ready to fight.

Speak you soon

Best Regards

Jari