A few days ago we were talking with Kris Meeke. Now, Thierry Neuville agreed to talk with us. Belgian driver told us about the car for 2016, his troubles, plans and targets for this season.
Hello Thierry. This is my first obvious question. You were testing the new car for 2016 recently. How do you feel after testing? Do you think that you can fight for the championship with it next year?
Of course, the main goal is to fight with it for the championship next year. Now, it's not a secret we've got some delay in development and that's why we introduce the new car only next year. Of course, the thing was good, it's only the first step so far, but more improvements are for sure there and bigger improvements are expected so I guess: yes – we should be able to fight for the win next year.
It's Rally Germany soon. Do you think that you'll be albe to redo your result from 2014 this year?
Yes, of course, we're gonna fight. We keep focus on our goal to get some good results to watch the end of the season now. Yes, we're gonna focus on being very competitive in Germany. Our main competitors will be Volkswagen. We have to be very focus and see what's possible. Volkswagen will be very fast and difficult to reach but we're gonna fight to the end and maybe like in a last year, we can end up first.
Are you happy with your current disposition? You know, after bad few rallies you've gained some good points in Sardegna and Poland.
I can't say I'm happy, you know, in a couple of rallies I lost the feeling, I had to change engineer after Argentina. Of course, then everything is more complicated. I have the good feeling with the new engineer, the understanding. It took me in a couple of events to find again a good feedback, good feeling with the car. We lost a bit confidence but it came back. Now the couple of last rallies we found the car speed. By the way, it's the good thing for upcoming events, so now we are not happy but we're going to fight back.
Rally Finland wasn't very good for you a year ago. What's your target this time?
Yes, last year we were very unlucky with the stone and actually the car was ok but the roll cage was bent, so we had to retire but this year for sure it can only be better. My goal is to finish in a front positions and try to move one position in a championship.
Do you have any specific goal for the rest of the season?
Of course, it seems like we're not able to focus on the victory, but in Germany maybe we can take a few more risk and try to win the rally but it's not our main goal. For us should be to finish on a good notes and to improve confidence for the start of the next year.
