Daniel Barry was heartbroken at his exit of the Centenary Rallye Monte Carlo on the snowy Col de Gaudissart stage. The young Irishman was on a come-back, after loosing time on the second test with a power-steering pump failure.
Based on information from the ice crew and engineers, Barry left service on Intermediate tyres with a pair of Winter tyres as spares, to do a loop of two stages close to Valence. However in a very short time the snow came down and the stages became treacherous. Barry and co-driver Adrian Deasy changed to the Winter tyres on the front, leaving the Intermediate tyres on the back, and set off into stage 7 of the arduous event.
During this stage alone the talented Co. Wicklow driver managed to claw back 4 places overall, 10 places in total that day, by setting the 3rd fastest group N stage time.
However on the even snowier stage 8, Col de Gaudissart, the back end of the car broke away from Barry and hit a banking, before sliding down the steep banking on the opposite side of the road.
On his return to service Daniel said “I did all I could to keep the car on the road when the back end broke away, but it was not enough. I’m devastated, but you have to make decisions based on the information you have at the time, and I agreed that Intermediate tyres were the right choice when we left service”. He continued, “We had made up some time on the previous stage, so I was thinking that if I could just keep up that pace and do the same again it would put us in a strong position for the final day”.
Barry is currently uncertain as to which direction to take in the sport for 2011, “We are looking at lots of options for the forthcoming season, and realise we have to do it quick, but there are a few options to look at as there are so many big changes going on in the sport at the moment”.
Bryan Bouffier won the event for Peugeot France, with Belgian Freddy Loix second and Briton Guy Wilks in third. The event was the 79th Rallye to have run between 1911 and 2011.
– Credit: Barry Motorsport.