Home

M-Sport retires Loubet from WRC Rally Sardinia

Pierre-Louis Loubet has retired from Rally Sardinia after the M-Sport World Rally Championship team discovered significant damage while trying to repair his Ford Puma overnight.

Loubet endured an eventful Friday at the rough gravel event which ultimately ended with a crash on stage seven.

The Frenchman started the day strongly, running as high as third overall after the morning loop.

However, his rally began to unravel when he suffered a gear selection issue at the start of stage five that prevented the 2019 WRC2 champion from starting on time, resulting in a three-minute penalty.

To make matters worse, damaged steering forced him off the road in the final stage of Friday.

M-Sport had hoped to repair the Puma to allow Loubet to re-join the rally on Saturday but the while fixing the car the team discovered more damage than they had originally anticipated.

“Whilst repairing Pierre-Louis’ car after the accident on SS7 yesterday, more damage was discovered than anticipated,” read a statement from the team.

“The team has therefore made the difficult decision to retire the car from the event.”

The retirement marks the fourth non-score from six events for Loubet this season after encountering issues in Monte Carlo, Mexico and Portugal.

Source: Autosport

Previous

Next