Stage one was as good as it got for Craig Breen at Rally Estonia this past weekend. The Waterford native would have been on cloud nine to pick up the fastest time on Thursday's super special stage with thousands of fans gathered to see the seventh stop on the WRC calendar, but the celebrations were short-lived.
Finlands Kalle Rovanperä picked up his fifth overall win of the season from behind the wheel of his Hyundai, ahead of Welshman Elfyn Evans for Toyota in second.
Breen began his weekends proper on Friday with decent times on stage 2 and three and while he had dropped back the standings slightly he was still well in contention for the weekend.
Stage 4 is where the wheels started to come for the Slieverue native. Veering wide on an open left-hander Breen went off the road in what looked to be an innocuous racing moment. It was only after the fact that the damage was discovered.
He had lost steering due to a concealed concrete telegraph pole that damaged the underside of his vehicle. The time he lost in that incident ended his hopes his challenging for a third podium in Estonia. While he did finish out the weekend - and set some consistent times throughout - he was too far back after the incident to make any headway.
After his first day retirement, Breen would focus all his efforts on the all-important Power Stage. Bad luck would again strike, the Irishman being caught in some of the heaviest rain that would fall during the stage, the weather would cause his windscreen to fog up and any chance of the additional points was lost.
“Bit of a difficult weekend, honestly. Already from Friday, things were going against us. The speed was really good, the car is working well and I felt in a good rhythm. Today we tried to push for some points on the power stage, but we got caught right in the middle of the storm. No points for us today, but bring on Finland in a couple of weeks’ time. The car feels great and hopefully, we can get a good result there” said Breen on Sunday.
He will have the chance to make amends in two weeks' time when the traveling circus makes its way to Finland. When that event gets underway, Breen will be resuming as the sixth best-placed driver in the standings while his team are third in the manufacturer's championship.
