Gravel rookie Eric Camilli is unfazed about tackling his first dirt rally in a World Rally Car on the back of retirements in Monte-Carlo and Sweden.

This week’s Rally Guanajuato Mexico (3 - 6 March) will be only the eighth gravel rally of the Frenchman’s career. His previous dirt outings came in a Peugeot 208 R2 car in his home country in 2014 and four rounds of the WRC 2 championship last season in a Ford Fiesta R5.

But the 28-year-old is not feeling under pressure ahead of his third start in a Fiesta RS WRC with the M-Sport squad, despite crashing into a tree at Rallye Monte-Carlo and rolling heavily at Rally Sweden.

“Malcolm (Wilson, team boss) has told me everything is OK. He said it wasn’t good not to finish the first two rallies, but told me to forget the bad results and concentrate on the future. His support has helped me forget the pressure and that’s very important,” Camilli told wrc.com.

Former co-driver Benjamin Veillas returns to the right-hand seat after Camilli split with Nicolas Klinger following Rally Sweden, and the pair have just one target in the heat and altitude of Mexico’s mountains.

“The main objective is just to finish the rally, I’m not looking at times. That’s my objective and also M-Sport’s objective for me. I need to discover the car on gravel and it’s very important for the future to finish and take the experience.

“I don’t have big experience of rallying in general and it has been difficult to discover World Rally Car level and the rallies. It hasn’t been easy to start the season like this, but it’s like that and now I want to think about the future and bounce back,” he said.

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