DMACK’s flying Finn Jari Ketomaa finished eighth overall on his home FIA World Rally Championship event, as he rounded off a strong performance on Neste Oil Rally Finland.
Ketomaa secured the top-eight place after an extremely solid and consistent performance saw him set a string of 14 top-10 stage times over the weekend on one of the world’s most-daunting events.
He powered the Autotek-run Ford Fiesta RS WRC through the rally’s opening 13.68 km stage on using DMACK’s DMG+2 gravel tyre to secure 10th position. Along with the other DMACK runners, Ketomaa used the S1 compound of the new tyre which was introduced using the joker system earlier this year.
The result marks an impressive performance for DMACK on this hugely specialised event.
The high-speed stages mean Finland is consistently one of the fastest rounds of the world series. But the challenge is heightened with the addition of huge stomach-churning crests and jumps which fire cars high into the air.
Ketomaa was happy with the grip and durability delivered by his tyres and his performance was helped by a two-day pre-event test where he tried various settings on a variety of road surfaces.
This boost in confidence allowed the Finn to run as the top private driver for most of the event.
The DMACK result confirms the manufacturer’s pace on the Finnish roads and this improving performance is backed up with a series on recent strong results on Finnish Rally Championship events.
“Jari has delivered a great result here for DMACK, on our first Rally Finland with a world rally car, and we’ve been extremely satisfied with the performance of our tyre,” Dick Cormack, DMACK motorsport director, said.
“His stage times have been consistent and the result marks another significant step in the continued development of our products.
“We knew the compound would be strong here after last year’s results and we are moving ahead event by event.”
About Jim McGill
Jim McGill is an award-winning motoring and motorsport journalist with more than 25 years' industry experience. He contributes to a number of newspapers and magazines, including The Times, Telegraph, Daily Mail, Scotsman, Sunday Herald and AA Magazine.
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