Pedder More Determined Than Ever On Home Soil
Scott Pedder starts this weekend’s tenth Round of the FIA World Rally Championship fiercely determined to secure a top result in front of his home supporters at Coates Hire Rally Australia.
“I am probably more determined than I’ve ever been in my entire rally career,” explained Pedder on the eve of the event, where he will test today ahead of the Coffs Harbour based event that starts on Thursday.
Scott and co-driver Dale Moscatt are fresh of their best result of their WRC2 campaign, they finished fourth in class at last month’s Rally Finland, and full of confidence. “Finland proved that we can be competitive against guys with far more experience of both the events and the cars. It’s given me a real boost heading into my home event,” he said.
While Rally Australia has attracted a reduced field of WRC2 contenders compared to the European Rounds Pedder has contested this season, the quality of those entered is significant, and Pedder admits he will have his work cut out to repeat his Finland performance, let alone be fighting for a podium place.
“Guys like Nasser Al-Attiyah, Yazeed Al Rajhi and Yuri Protasov are all top class. I hope my local experience and my progress over the last four events will help me bridge the gap to these guys. Finland was a great result but I’m fully aware I still lack a bit of pace against the fastest WRC2 guys.”
“Even though it’s my home event these guys have done the rally just as many times as I have, so there really isn’t a huge amount of local knowledge I can apply. But I do have a massive amount of home town support and that counts for a lot!” he added.
Having honed the setup of his Ford at Rally Finland, Pedder will test the special 100th edition of M-Sport’s Fiesta R5 later today having linked up with the highly experienced team for this event.
“Rally Australia probably has some of the most diverse roads, and road conditions, in the Championship. So testing will really focus on making sure we have the best setup for the rally,” commented Scott.
“We will start with a setup like we ran on Day Two at Rally Finland, it was designed to cope with some of the rougher roads, and just see how the car reacts. No matter how comfortable you are with a car you always want to test things to see if you can do any better.”
“We will be focusing on suspension and tyres, trying out both the hard and soft DMACK Tyres, so that we know what to expect once the rally gets underway later in the week,” he added.
With reconnaissance of the stages on Tuesday and Wednesday, and with a number of new stages and changes to existing stages, Pedder and Moscatt will have a busy start to their week before the official shakedown stage on Thursday morning gives them a final chance to test their car before the weekend’s action commences.
About The Rally
Coates Hire Rally Australia, based out of the New South Wales coastal town of Coffs Harbour, features seventeen stages and just over three hundred kilometres of gravel action.
With roads ranging from traditional forestry tracks amongst the gum trees, to fast, sweeping Shire roads winding through the hills, the rally features a diverse range of conditions for drivers and teams to adapt to.
Friday and Saturday’s stages take drivers into the Nambucca region South of Coffs Harbour, including a 7.94km night-time forest test on Saturday evening, while Sunday’s move North to the Orara East and Lower Bucca State Forests.
