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Ostberg: The pressure was on
Mads Ostberg has admitted he had to rein in his desire to fight at Rally Guanajuato Mexico with the need to bring home a good result for Citroen.
Following Kris Meeke’s early retirement, the pressure was on Ostberg to deliver a good points haul to revitalise his team’s fortunes after a poor showing in Monte Carlo and Sweden.
“It hasn’t been a good start to the season for the team and the pressure got even harder during the event when Kris went off,” Ostberg explained. “Obviously there was no chance for me other than to get to the end. But I wanted to push. I wanted to do a good rally.”
Ostberg’s own rally got off to an awkward start with a spin on Friday’s opening test. But he fought back with second-fastest on the demanding El Chocolate and was up to third by SS8.
Third became second when Jari-Matti Latvala went off on SS12, and he held the position until the end, defending it from a hard charging Andreas Mikkelsen.
“I made a mistake on Stage 12 and after the that gap to Andreas was not so good,” said Mads. “He got a sniff of second and increased his speed. I tried to do the same, but I had to balance it. On one hand I wanted to push, but on the other I had to be safe. In the end I met halfway. I think I managed it well.”
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