DMACK will remain in Scandinavia next week to further develop its snow tire ahead of next year's Rally Sweden after a troubled outing in Karlstad this week.
The Chinese firm was running its rubber on a World Rally Car in the snow for the first time, with leading Finnish driver Jari Ketomaa using DMACKs on his Ford Fiesta RS WRC. Ketomaa went off the road on SS8, spent 20 minutes in a ditch and elected not to return to the stages today.
The Finn, who led his home round of the World Rally Championship last season, said: "I went off in an S-bend. We got through the right, but there was a tight left and we went off the road and into a ditch.
"We had a meeting last night and decided not to restart this morning, we had dropped a lot of time and the tires weren't working the same way that we had seen in the test."
DMACK's Dick Cormack said the tires had been tested and worked better in much colder conditions.
"The tire was perfect at around minus 30," said Cormack. "We tested in those conditions with fresh snow and it worked really well. Unfortunately it's warmer here and there's less snow around. The tire's not losing its studs, it's more of an issue with the compound which is warming up and flexing and not giving the kind of constant grip which we sought.
"We are staying in the snow next week. We'll go to Finland to some roads and work with testing on some new tires to make sure we get this right.
"We should remember this is the first time the DMACK tire has been run on a World Rally Car on this event. We won PWRC last year, but Jari and the Ford Fiesta has taken us up a level."