It was a magnificent season by Andreas Mikkelsen and TOKSPORT WRT team in 2021. What we are now bringing you are the top 5 highlights from Andreas's perspective. What were the key moments of the season crowned by WRC2 and ERC titles? Let’s find out.
RALLYE MONTE CARLO
I think we should start with Rally Monte Carlo because this rally was the first rally of the season. We managed to win it quite comfortably and we took the maximum Power stage points even though I took a spin but still we wanted it to be a really convincing result. So I say that this definitely is one of the highlights.
Backstage: Andreas won the famous Rally Monte Carlo by a margin bigger than 1.5 minutes. That was a really promising start of the season and a clear announcement of him attacking the WRC2 title.
CROATIA RALLY
So the second highlight I would say would be a Croatia Rally when we won the Power stage there with a lot of seconds ahead. We were also really close to taking points away from the WRC cars. So, this drive was really insane. I pushed really to the maximum.
Backstage: Andreas had bad luck in Croatia. He lost his wheel in SS2 and picked up a huge time loss, but he didn’t give up. He won the Power stage by a class difference of almost 8 seconds to other RC2 cars. He beat 3 WRC cars by this spectacular drive!
RALLY ESTONIA
The third highlight would probably be Estonia. Rally Estonia was great for us this year. We had some tricky events before that, but we managed to turn things around and we won Rally Estonia, which was really great. So that was kind of a highlight.
Backstage: There was a really tight fight with Mads Østberg in Estonia this year. Andreas proved his speed and experience once again. He won 11 stages and had a 6 seconds faster overall time at the end. Only 6 seconds after 315 km long rally! (excluded Mad’s 10 seconds Friday penalty). What a win!
ACROPOLIS RALLY GREECE
Another highlight would be our win on Acropolis. Everything in Greece ran smoothly and what's more Marco Bulacia also did a great job in the team and he ended up second and it was a close race with him the whole rally. There were some tricky conditions in the end. We made a big difference there and it was fine.
Backstage: Victory in Greece was the third one in the 2021 season. It was a great success for TOKSPORT WRT team because Andreas and Marco won 11 of 15 special stages and managed to gain a double for the team. Huge load of points from Greece played a key role in the championship fight.
AZORES RALLYE A RALLY SERRAS DE FAFE E FELGUEIRAS
And then the last highlight of the season was the two rallies we had in the ERC; the wins in the Azores Rally, which is one of my favourite events, and Fafe. We had a big fight with Dani Sordo there in both the events. We managed to reach the first places in both.
Backstage: These two victories made Andreas the 2021 ERC champion. Clever drive and tyre choice allowed Andreas to resist Dani’s pressure and manage to gain a 16 seconds lead during final day of the Rally Azores. Dani rolled at the end of the first day at Fafe but he was back on Sunday with an impressive speed. He pushed really hard since the morning stages trying to provoke Andreas to make a mistake. It didn’t happen. Second ERC win in the row!
