Rally Portugal is one of WRC’s roughest rallies. Mads Östberg and co-driver Jonas Andersson got valuable testing in Rally Mexico giving them a good feeling about this weekends round in Portugal.

The duo landed in Portugal Saturday and had Sunday as a test day before Monday’s recce. Gaining 100 kilometres of testing on Sunday and the experience from Rally Mexico Östberg feels good about this years round in Portugal.
– It’s good being able to test before a rally again. We had some trouble in the morning but when we fixed that we got to test out what we wanted and ended up with a good setup on the car, Östberg says.

Some new changes to the car were a good step in the right directions.
– It worked just the way we wanted! Östberg says.

Rally Portugal is this years fourth WRC round containing 22 special stages on rough gravel leaving punctures as a high risk.
– It’s really important to be cleaver on this event. You can’t go on the limit all the time but have to hold back where it’s needed, he says.

Östbergs best result in Portugal is as number six something he will try to improve.
– In rallies we know we want to challenge the podium and that’s what we’re going to do this weekend. But it’s going to be a hard fight with all the factory drivers starting, Östberg says.
– But with Sundays test, good pacenotes and a good setup on the car I know we can challenge the podium, he says.