It was the only rally in this year's championship which I had not driven before. The roads are very demanding, a lot of corners, I have never seen such slow stages in my life. Slow but tricky as well. We knew it would be very hard work for the driver, one of the most demanding rallies on the physical side. The place, however, seems to be nice, an ideal holiday location. The stages are very close to each other, so the location is good.

The big debate was having to drive with gravel tyres on asphalt stages. The top teams had agreed that we would be able to use 15" gravel tyres all the rally, to save bringing extra equipment to Cyprus, and of course we embarked on something quite new. Actually when we tested the gravel tyre situation during our recent pre-Cyprus test in Sardinia we found the required driving style was in fact not much changed, but we found it was surprisingly hard for the brakes, because the discs are smaller, and stopping the car when there is less grip means you are using the brakes for a longer time. You have to stay longer on the pedal and gives less time for the brakes to cool down. you have to stop playing with the throttle when you are braking as that will really quickly heat up you brakes and kill them!

But related to this was a question. Just how hard would we really want to drive on the opening day? Certainly when the rally reached the gravel stages on the Saturday and Sunday it would not be the best place to be first car on the road, if the conditions were dry. But the weather at this time of the year in Cyprus was changeable, it might be wet! If it would be wet, it would be better to be the first car on the road on the gravel stages. All I planned to do was to be sure I kept close to the top guys and not lose too much time. Obviously if too many gravel stages have to be run more than once, the rally will be rougher. For me I get used to stages which are rough, but mentally it is harder when surfaces are mixed, because it is more difficult to find the correct rhythm for both surfaces. You have to be able to switch immediately from one to the other.

On the rally things were going quite well on the Friday. Using the gravel tyres on the tarmac roads in fact worked fine, and by the afternoon when I had been able to learn how to use them on this surface, we were quite competitive and we finished the day in fourth place, just 8.1 seconds behind our teammate Mikko. The day started off well on the Saturday morning, when we were the quickest on the first stage on gravel, then it went wrong. I went off the road and lost over 20 minutes. The car was stuck on the edge of the road on the second part of a double bend. I had approached the first part a little too fast and tried to cut across the second bend to compensate. I was by now only in second gear so I didn't have enough speed to climb out of the cut and get back to the road. In the end I was able to run back about a kilometre to where I remembered seeing a group of spectators. They followed me back and eventually we got going again. It was, of course, a big disappointment. We eventually climbed back up to 12th, winning two points for the team in the Manufacturer's championship.

Thoughts about Portugal? It is good that Marcus Gronholm is coming back, that is great for the rally and the championship. It will be splendid for the media people and spectators. Portugal anyway is a nice rally, I have good memories of the place but we will have some new stages to discover, and of course it will be a faster rally than what we have here in Cyprus, quite a lot faster, in fact. I have a good feeling for doing well there.

3mmm