Scott Pedder and co-driver Dale Moscatt have completed their most successful weekend on the World Rally Championship, reaching the finish ramp of Rally Poland and building on their experience ahead of their next challenge, Rally Finland.
After two torturous outings this year, Rally de Portugal and Rallye Italia Sardegna, Pedder was determined to reach the finish line intact in Poland, and despite some mechanical challenges along the way he and co-driver Dale Moscatt managed to bring their Ford Fiesta R5 home in a respectable twelfth in WRC2 and twenty-ninth overall.
Having been slowed on Leg One after the power steering failed, and driving over 130 competitive kilometres arm wrestling the Fiesta around every corner, Pedder turned up the pace over Leg Two’s stages setting a string of top ten times in the ultra-fierce WRC2 field.
With just two stages run on the final Leg in Poland Pedder once again powered out of the blocks to set a sixth quickest WRC2 time on the opening stage. “We made some really positive changes to the car overnight and it instantly felt better on the first stage, in fact I was pacing myself a little bit so we could have gone even faster,” said Scott.
“What I’m learning with the setup of the car is that everything is the opposite of what I’d expect compared to every other rally car I’ve ever driven. The car had been oversteering quite a bit, so usually I’d have softened the rear springs to compensate. In fact we stiffened the rear, I thought that was the wrong call, but it worked!”
With his confidence up Pedder decided to attack the final stage, in preparation for the upcoming Round in Finland, only to come unstuck on a tight corner. “We were having a big go, and just on a tight corner I spun and it took forever to get it turned around,” he explained.
In three weeks time Pedder and Moscatt will head to Rally Finland, one of the most daunting and demanding events on the WRC calendar. It’s mixture of high-speed roads, stratospheric jumps and pine forests on the very edges of the road combine to form one of the most dramatic challenges in rallying.
“It’s going to be another massive challenge, that’s for sure,” said Scott. “Local knowledge is going to play a part, and many of the guys around me in WRC2 have grown up driving on those roads. Luckily I’ve got Dale with me and he has been to the rally before so I’m going to be tapping into as much of that experience as possible.”
“We will have a full days test ahead of the rally, I’m hopeful it’s a road with loads of big jumps to try out! I’m pretty confident with the setup we’ve currently got with the car, it’s been three events of deduction to get to this point, but it has me very positive heading into Rally Finland,” added Pedder.
Rally Finland features twenty high-speed gravel stages, totalling almost three hundred and twenty kilometres, and gets underway in the town of Jyväskylä on the 30th July 2015.
WRC2 Rally Poland Results After Leg Three
1. Esapekka Lappi / Janne Ferm (Skoda Fabia R5) 2h32m02.6s
2. Pontus Tidemand / Emil Axelsson (Skoda Fabia R5) +56.1s
3. Karl Kruuda / Martin Järveoja (Citroen DS3 R5) +2m05.3s
4. Jari Ketomaa / Kaj Lindstrom (Ford Fiesta R5) +4m54.1s
5. Armin Kremer / Pirmin Winklhofer (Skoda Fabia R5) +5m11.9s
12. Scott Pedder / Dale Moscatt (Ford Fiesta R5) +17m24.8s
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