J-WRC driver blog - Rally Mexico

I had my first good night sleep last night since I arrived in Mexico which was fantastic; I was dreaming about driving snow mobiles and I didn't want to wake up! Then I woke up and there was no snow to be seen!

After yesterday's problem's I had nothing to lose today, only to gain. So we started pushing hard this morning and it felt really good when we got up to fourth by SS11 - it was a good feeling for us and the team, until we got a puncture on the first stage this afternoon.

We didn't go off the road; it was just bad luck hitting a stone in the driving line. We stopped to change it but the jack started to collapse so it took longer than it should have done and we lost two and a half minutes. But the adrenalin that is running through your body when you have to do something like this in the stage is amazing - I think if there was anyone Swedish nearby watching us they would probably have thought that Emil and I weren't very good friends and we were just shouting at each other.

Colin Clark from World Rally Radio stopped us at the end of the stage and asked me if I wanted to say something for my girlfriend Caroline so I said a message to her in Swedish sending her some kisses. She sent me an SMS back telling me not to be so embarrassing!

Then we were back where we started in the morning - two minutes behind [Aaron] Burkart but I was still feeling really confident, we had a good rhythm and we won the stage and took 30 seconds out of Burkart on the next stage. Then it went wrong again when I hit a stone on a sixth gear corner and we had to stop to change another puncture. And I started to think about snow mobiles again; it's my way of escaping when things aren't quite going to plan!

At the end of each group of stages we update the blog on our website from the mobile and send pictures so if anyone fancies keeping a closer eye on us, have a look at:
www.patriksandell.com/

Now I'm off for some dinner at 'Ninni's restaurant' as we call it - the catering area where all the J-WRC drivers eat together, and hopefully another good night's sleep dreaming about snow mobiles.

Sweet dreams...

Patrik