Ford technical director Christian Loriaux is happy the brake problems which hindered Mikko Hirvonen at this morning's Rally GB shakedown will not affect the Finn's championship challenge on the World Rally finale this week.
Hirvonen completed one run of the stage, which took place at the Royal Welsh Showground in Builth Wells, but suffered a brake problem on his Ford Fiesta RS WRC and was unable to return to the stage for more than an hour while the team fixed the problem. The problem occurred after the stage, with Hirvonen posting his fastest time on his opening run.
Loriaux said: "I'm not going to tell you too much about the problem, but we have changed the master cylinder on the car and it's fine now. We're glad it happened now and not on the event, put it that way."
While he would not go into detail about the issue, Loriaux admitted it was a problem which had occurred before.
"We've had a bit of a problem with this thing on the brakes recently," said Loriaux. "But the guys were able to diagnose it and sort it out quickly."
Hirvonen subsequently completed three further runs at the stage and ended shakedown eighth fastest.