Engine failure detected by “Stecka” Walfridsson on his way to Friday’s technical scrutineering lead to nighshift for Helmia Motorsport.

During the French ERC round at Dreux Stig-Olof Walfridsson crashed his Renault Clio Mk3 SuperCar heavily against the guard-rails, resulting in  whiplash for himself. But later on the team did not find any damage done to the engine. However, while preparing for the technical scrutineering at Greinbach the car had to undergo a noise test in which the engine was highly revved up and the Swede noticed that cooling water ran out of the Clio’s expansion tank.

“We think that the head-gasket is f*** so we decided to change the engine rather than taking any risk. As we did not start the scrutineering for the car we are able to do it without being punished for changing the motor during the event with the result that we would have been downgraded for eight positions,” said “Stecka” to ERC24 while watching his team being busy on Friday evening. “We have just one spare engine for both of us, Mats [Lysen] and me, so let’s hope their will be no other engine troubles to come.”

Meanwhile, there is currently bright sunshine over the PS Racing Center at Greinbach in Austria’s Styria region, although the seers have expected the third ERC round of the year to become also hit by lots of rain…