From Russia with love! But not so much...

A late arrival into St Petersbourg on a Sunday evening wasn’t too bad an idea, less of a queue at passport control, miss the traffic on my way to Vyborg, no queue at the hire car desk......... All was going well until I realised sat nav would be a good investment at the hire car desk!

My new Russian friend had never used the sat nav, I didn’t speak Russian which the sat nav was coincidentally set in!

So 50 minutes later and at midnight I was now northward bound through St Petersbourg - enough to keep any European on his toes!!!

Monday morning and...... well afternoon (I did have a lie in), and David Moynihan (replacing Phil here as Phil has pulled his....., is injured) shouldn’t be far away.

The border to Finland is only 40k away but David would be sitting there three hours before admittance to Russia!

It was soon apparent from the recce that this rally was not going to be easy but with plenty of competition our heads were down from the off.

Day one couldn’t have been better. All according to plan through the first four stages to pull a 22-second lead on Kris Meeke and Simon Jean-Joseph.
 
And to top it all off a ceremonial start in St Petersbourg........ after we’d already started, work that one out!!

Day two started as we’d left off and our lead was growing with each stage. David was doing a good job and was starting to relax. Just when we were well into our stride a shaft broke at the end of the 3rd stage and we still had one more to do before service.

One wheel drive for 29k is no fun but we were still moving until 5k from the finish. Total electrical failure (caused by a broken radiator fan cowling, very freak, but probably caused by rough roads)....... our run was coming to a standstill!

It took more than 5 minutes to find the problem so super rally rules would be used. Day three was short, a shaft problem put pay to any result but the positives must be taken.

Honda was leading a gravel rally within their category by a healthy margin against stern opposition, the performance is there we only have this one problem of drive shafts dogging us now.... the team are on to it!!!

Guy