Lombardo, who retired on Saturday afternoon and rejoined today under the Rally 2 regulation, achieved exactly what he wanted to today: ”we had a good morning on the stages. It cost us a little bit of time on the 29 kilometre ’Shipmans’ stage due to losing concentration, but generally it was pretty good on the fast stages today.”
Like his team-mate, Fessman also had a positive day following a small excursion yesterday ”After today’s competition, we are more comfortable with the car. Our goal was to get better to improve our times. We enjoyed the last stage, which had jumps and water splashes and a lot of crowds”
Both Fessman and Lombardo are members of Rally Team Venezuela and were able to compete in Australia due to their strong support from both Venezuela and its Ministry of Sport.
Ralliart Italia Team Manager Bruno De Pianto was pleased to see them both arrive at the finish safely today: ”Rally Australia is a unique event and was a new challenge for our drivers. Carlos is gradually learning the different challenges the WRC throws at its competitors, while this was only Alejandro’s second WRC event. Both of them will take a lot of experience away from this rally ready to come back next year stronger. After this we head to France. Carlos put in a strong performance in Germany, which we hope he’ll repeat on the Alsatian stages. It’ll be Alejandro’s first time on a WRC Tarmac event – another steep learning curve – but they, and we, can’t wait!”
