As with every other team, we have worked very hard before this particular battle. Work has been done both off and on the track; the huge amount of work would not be feasible for a single person but rather required the combined teamwork of the racing and R&D teams. After the Off-road warm-up in Austria back in May, we were ready to participate at the official Nitro Touring Euros warm-up in Italy. However, due to some very important work and projects in the factory we had no free time and as such we had to skip the official warm-up and find an alternative date for private testing.

While testing we exchanged cars with Martin and as usual I felt his car to be much more sensitive with a lot more steering. To get an independent opinion, we gave both my and Martin’s cars to Bayer for testing. Ironically, he reported the opposite: my car had more steering and my shock set-up was more to his personal likeness! That made it very clear that everyone prefers a different handling style and what seems to understeer to one person may seem to oversteer for someone else.