New Zealanders Dave Holder and co-driver Jason Farmer have finished their first attempt at Rally Finland in ninth place among 13 finishers in the Junior World Rally Championship category.
It wasn’t quite the result Holder hoped for, but the Mount Manganui-based driver is continuing his 100 per cent finish rate in his debut JWRC season.
Holder and Farmer wrapped up the action with four stages on Sunday morning (EEST) and were able to set the third-fastest stage time on the opening 11.74km special stage, their best stage result on this rally.
“Not the result we really wanted from this event, but we finished on a positive note with a third-fastest stage time in the first stage today, so that’s heading in the right direction,” said Holder. “Two other stages were top six and the last stage, we got a puncture so had to run some mediums. Overall not such a bad day today.”
Holder credits fellow Kiwi Hayden Paddon who spent some time with Holder and Farmer on Saturday evening to help them with their pace notes.
“That made a difference today and I was able to drive, especially that first stage, with confidence that the notes were fine. Moving forward we’ve got to be able to create pace notes on these events that we haven’t seen before – we have to create good notes from scratch.
“So, plenty of things to take away and to learn. We are disappointed not to have finished every stage of the rally but we got 100% experience in Finland and now we prepare for Turkey to try and get a better result there.”
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