Kosciuszko vows to bounce back from disappointing Jordan Rally 05.04.2010: Polish driver Michal Kosciuszko and the Dynamic World Rally Team has endured a frustrating end to the all-gravel Jordan Rally. Having driven flawlessly at the wheel of his Ford Fiesta S2000 run by Symtech

Polish driver Michal Kosciuszko and the Dynamic World Rally Team has endured a frustrating end to the all-gravel Jordan Rally. Having driven flawlessly at the wheel of his Ford Fiesta S2000 run by Symtech Racing, Kosciuszko crashed out of second place in class on the final day of the event while battling a differential problem with just five stages to go.
  


Michal Kosciuszko on the rough gravel in Jordan
    

The accident on SS16 occurred at what should have been a straightforward corner, but the car slid off the road and rolled down a bank, landing on its roof. The crew were taken to hospital in Amman for a check-up but released the same evening.

Kosciuszko was right on the pace from the first day of the rough and rocky event, but had to retire from leg one with an alternator failure on Thursday afternoon. This was the same problem that had delayed the team on the last round in Mexico, where Kosciuszko posted an impressive nine fastest stage times.

Undeterred he worked his way back up the order to second place in Jordan, before it all went wrong for him on the final day. Nonetheless, Symtech Racing is confident that they will be able to rebuild the Fiesta in time for Kosciuszko's next event on the highly-competitive Super 2000 World Rally Championship: the Rally Portugal from May 28-30.

Michal Kosciuszko said: "This obviously wasn't the way that we wanted to end our trip to Jordan. It's ironic because we were really taking it easy in order to avoid putting strain on the car in these very rough conditions and the place where we went off was nothing special. Before though we had been struggling with the rear differential, which was locking and unlocking, and this was probably the cause of the accident.

Our plan had been to get the car through the event and just pick up as many points as we could: without the alternator problem on Thursday we could have challenged for the win. As it was, second place was quite safely in the bag when we went into the final day. I don't really remember too much about the accident, but it was a big one. Accidents are part of rallying though so now it's just a question of putting this behind us and concentrating on our next event in Portugal. I'm sure we will be back and fighting at the front again."

Symtech Racing's Wim de Boeck commented: "First of all, the main thing is that both Michal and his co-driver Maciek are OK after what was quite a scary accident. We clearly have a good strong car and this is also reassuring. As for the damage, we can fix that in time for Portugal. This rally was something of a missed opportunity for us as we clearly had the pace to win, just as was the case in Mexico.

 Conditions were unbelievably rough, which was why we chose the tactic of controlling our pace. Up to the point of the accident, this strategy was working well. Although we come away from Jordan with no points, I think our pace is once more clear to see. We're already looking forward to Rally Portugal next month: as of now the Jordan Rally is history. This is a long championship and everything is still to play for."
  
 

- Symtech Racing - also photo