Sesks Finishes Eighth in Rebuilt Car at Rally Finland

Martin Sesks and his co-driver Francis finished eighth at the WRC round in Finland. The Latvian crew completed the rally in a car that had been badly damaged in a crash a day earlier and repaired overnight by the M-Sport team.

On the final, 20th special stage, Sesks was the slowest of the Ford entries, finishing one second behind teammate Josh McErlean. Takamoto Katsuta ended up behind the Latvian pair after losing more than a minute, while stage winner Elfyn Evans was 27.6 seconds faster than Sesks.

In the overall classification, Sesks and Francis finished 51 minutes behind winner Sami Pajari. They beat teammate John Armstrong, who had lost a lot of time on the first day. Retirements by Sebastien Ogier and Esapekka Lappi helped the Latvians gain two places.

Sesks’ large deficit came from a crash the previous day, which forced him to miss two stages and dropped him from fifth to ninth. M-Sport mechanics repaired the badly damaged car overnight, allowing the Latvian to return to competition.

Finland’s round was won by home driver Sami Pajari, who finished 26 seconds ahead of Oliver Solberg. Evans was third, Adrien Fourmaux fourth and Thierry Neuville fifth.

In the WRC standings, Evans leads with 201 points, followed by Pajari on 171. Sesks’ 12 points place him 15th. Four events remain this season; Sesks is scheduled to take part in two of them – Rally Italy from October 1-4 and Rally Saudi Arabia from November 11-14.