Digging out of snowbanks all part of the Sweden experience - Munster

Competing on snow in a Rally1 car for the first time, the Luxembourg driver endured a baptism of fire with some of the most complicated winter conditions in recent memory.

“It was a tough event,” Munster said. “Esapekka [Lappi] said these were the worst conditions he saw on Friday, it was difficult.”

Munster’s event was further complicated when stopped to change a puncture on the opening day and then spent time in an Umeå snowbank on Saturday evening. Despite those issues, he made solid progress in Sweden.

He said: “We had nothing to play for after the puncture. We were here to get experience.

“I would give us a score of 7.5 if I did not do my mistake…the gaps per kilometre were getting smaller and smaller, and that was the goal.

“Unfortunately we made the small mistake on Saturday evening, but getting stuck in a snowbank is part of the experience of Rally Sweden!

“It lasted like 15 minutes but it felt like one hour. You are just standing there with the car on 60cm of snow – three wheels are touching the ground but you don’t manage to get out. It is just such a stressful, frustrating feeling.

“But I think every driver who has done the rally has had that experience at some time. It was unfortunate as it makes extra work for the mechanics, but they fixed everything so it could go again on Sunday to give us even more experience, which I’m very glad to have had.”