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WRC rising star Martins Sesks keeping lid on Sweden expectations
World Rally Championship rising star Martins Sesks has already started to turn heads at Rally Sweden, but the Latvian insists his goal this weekend is to gather experience.
Sesks makes his return to the WRC top flight this weekend with M-Sport after shooting to fame in three wildcard outings for the Ford squad last year.
Drives to fifth in Poland, while narrowly missing out on a podium in his native Latvia last season, has left many believing Sesks is one of the brightest young talents in the WRC.
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The 25-year-old has already lit up the timing screens setting the second fastest time on the event’s shakedown stage ahead of the rally’s first of 18 stages, beginning on Thursday night (18:05 GMT).
Sesks, making first start on snow in a Rally1 car, completed the 3.44km Umea City stage with a time 1.4s slower than pacesetter Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville. Despite the strong start, the M-Sport-Ford driver is not getting carried away by the performance.
“This is new rally for us and we just need to build up speed and experience for the future,” said Sesks. “It is nice too be back for sure.”
“It will be a fast rally for sure and I have some experience on snow, but now we have the fastest car available and the new tyres and everything.
“In the shakedown it took some time to get up to speed and get up to the feeling, but I think that will be the case throughout the rally. We will just keep building and progressing.
“The stages are rally fast and the thing is sometimes they are changing in rhythm. You have fast and really flat out sections and then you are getting into small narrow roads in between the trees, and the snowbanks are really close to the road. It is going to be a challenge.”
Hyundai’s Ott Tanak clocked the third fastest shakedown time ahead of Toyota’s Elfyn Evans, Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux and two-time world champion Kalle Rovanpera.
Sesks’ fellow rookie team-mate Josh McErlean was seventh quickest as the Irishman got to grips with the all-new challenge of driving a Rally1 car on snow.
“I think it is a bit too early to be thinking about good results just yet,” said McErlean. “We need to get the experience and the consistency, and we showed in Monte Carlo that we finished in quite a string position, so I think the same approach would be good this weekend.”
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