If the Rally Acropolis winner was to indeed forget it there was what appeared to be and endless line of people there just waiting to remind him of how important a good result was, so the pressure was on from the word go.
Craig and his co-driver Scott Martin got straight down to business on Thursday evening’s qualifying stage and stopped the clocks in their Peugeot 208T16 second fastest, just half a second behind Italian Driver Luca Rossetti with his Peugeot Rally Academy team-mate Kevin Abbring in third spot. Many rallies on the ERC have local drivers that always perform well but in Ypres there is only ever one big threat and that’s eight times winner Freddy Loix and he qualified fourth hot on the heels of the Peugeot pair.
The drivers could afford to sleep on their road position choice as the start selection ceremony did not take place until the following day at lunch time and Craig chose as he qualified, second spot. For sure he wouldn’t have the advantage of seeing where other drivers were taking lines and braking as if he had chosen to run further down the field but it was the perfect road position if the weather should turn like it had last year making conditions treacherous on the slippery Belgian asphalt.
It’s never a good omen when you have trouble on the first stage of the first leg and on Friday evening that’s what Craig got when he straight away picked up a front left puncture on the rally opener. It was Abbring that won the stage with the locals Cedric Cherain and Loix taking second and third respectively. Craig’s bad luck continued on the second stage when his brakes all but disappeared after the previous puncture severed a brake line and Craig was only able to make temporary repairs.
Craig limped on through the next two stages to get to service but lost lots of time to the battle at the front between Abbring, Loix and Rossetti. Although running trouble free for the final three stages of the leg Craig said “I don’t feel confident to push hard”, his earlier problems obviously unsettling the feeling between him and the car.
A beautiful morning greeted the drivers for the start of leg two (Saturday) and a reborn Craig posted third quickest time on the opening SS8, a mere 0.9 seconds off stage winner and main championship rival Esapekka Lappi. Lappi’s rally came to an end on the next stage which gave Craig even more encouragement to fight back up the leader board but technical issues began to hamper the Peugeot Rally Academy driver once again and they climaxed in transmission failure on SS14 forcing Craig into retirement.
As the leading drivers continued to drop out with problems it was left to Ypres master Freddy Loix to make safely across the stop line on the final stage to claim his ninth victory on the event.
You can keep up to date with Craig’s FIA ERC 2014 campaign by visiting www.craigbreen.com or www.peugeot-sport.com
