After two days of mixed results at Rally Finland, Scott Pedder went back to the drawing board overnight, making wholesale suspension changes to his Skoda Fabia R5 and in turn banking a string of top six fastest stage times in WRC2.
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“We really had nothing to lose results wise, we were tenth in WRC2 overnight and with only four short stages to go today I thought it was time for a different approach,” explained Scott. “So we changed the setup quite dramatically back to one we ran in Portugal.”

After dropping significant time during Friday’s opening Leg of Rally Finland after a demoralizingly slow spin into a ditch, Scott Pedder and co-driver Dale Moscatt made determined progress over Saturday’s eight stages, putting aside a further spin to end the day tenth in WRC2 and 20th outright.
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“We knew yesterday that we needed some of the guys ahead of us to hit problems if we had a chance of edging further up the order, unfortunately that just didn’t happen today, everyone seemed to have a trouble free day,” said Scott at the end of Leg service.

Scott Pedder’s run at Rally Finland has hit an early setback, the Australian driver suffering a low speed spin on the opening stage of Leg One, and dropping over two minutes and fifty seconds in the process.
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The dramas though started much earlier in the week on Monday when Pedder and co-driver Dale Moscatt misjudged a jump during their third run at testing, landing slightly off line and running into a small ditch that contained a rock.

Australia’s Scott Pedder returns to the scene of his strongest WRC2 result from last season when he and co-driver Dale Moscatt return to Europe this week to contest Rally Finland.

“We got a great result here last year, fourth in WRC2 against some amazing competition, and we achieved it by knuckling down,” said Pedder who had come off frustrating mechanical failures and setup issues on the previous WRC2 outings last season.

“Even though it’s the fastest rally on the calendar I started the event not concentrating on speed, which for me is a hard thing to do, but on just concentrating on driving. My aim is to do similar this year.”

During the opening Leg of Rally Poland Scott Pedder and co-driver Dale Moscatt battled with a faulty differential in their Skoda Fabia R5. Yesterday they mounted a determined come back only to lose valuable time with a puncture. And on the final day of the rally heavy overnight rain and treacherous road conditions conspired to see Pedder forced onto the retirement list.

​“It’s been such an up and down weekend,” said Pedder. “And each time we managed to fight back. On Friday we finished equal tenth and managed to get back to fifth before the puncture yesterday dropped us to eighth. Today we managed to get back to fifth again after the opening stage, and then everything unravelled again.”

After the frustration of dealing with a mishandling car during yesterday’s opening Leg of Rally Poland, Australian rally driver Scott Pedder mounted a determined comeback today, only to see all his hard work cruelly dissolve on the very last stage of the day.
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In the fiercely contested WRC2 category, where fractions of a second can cover a handful of drivers, Pedder knew that if he maintained a solid pace throughout the day he could work his way up the order and into a strong position.

Scott Pedder’s opening Leg of Rally Poland, the seventh Round of the FIA World Rally Championship, has seen the Australian struggle with an ill handling Skoda Fabia R5 on roads that demand high-speed precision.
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“It’s been a handful from the very first day,” said an exasperated Pedder. “The feeling in the car has been progressively worse all day, especially under braking and turning. We think it’s diff related, however we won’t know until we get into the first stage tomorrow morning to know if it is any better or not.”

​Scott Pedder and co-driver Dale Moscatt have undertaken an important pre-event test session ahead of this weekend’s Rally Poland, one of the fastest and most challenging events on the World Rally Championship calendar.
 
The flowing nature of the Polish stages leads to extreme speeds for drivers to contend with, and having made the switch to a Skoda Fabia R5 for this season’s campaign on the WRC2 Pedder is feeling extremely confident of another good result once the rally begins.

Bitter last stage disappointment for Scott Pedder and co-driver Dale Moscatt as they miss out on a podium finish in WRC2 at the Rally de Portugal by just 0.2 seconds.
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The day once again started positively for Pedder in his Skoda Fabia R5, setting the 11th fastest time outright and second fastest in WRC2 behind Finn Teemu Suninen. That allowed him to edge ahead of Norway’s Marius Aasen into third.