rally-emag 037 may 2016

Issue 37, May 2016

Portugal

Acropolis

azores

the road to china pt. IV / Sezoens rally BRC / Pirelli Carlisle Rally BRC / ELE Rally drc

meekestorms portugal

Solberg, Portugal

#fafe #nuffsaid

Image: Erik van ‘t Land


Neuville, Portugal

#ontopoftheworld


Prokop, Portugal#mirrormirror


paddon, portugal

#risingstar

Rally-eMag May 2016 / Contents

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Who made it?

Publisher: Rally-eMag

Words: Steven van Veenendaal, Harry van Veenendaal.

Photography: Erik van’t Land, Harry van Veenendaal, Steven van Veenendaal, PR.

Who helped?

Logo design: Minse Blom

Backcover artwork: Dam Charles

Distribution: Issuu.com

Who we thank!

PR Photography from: Peugeot Sport, Hyundai Mo-torsport, Citroen Racing, FIA ERC, Volkswagen Motorsport, M-Sport, Red Bull Media Pool.

How to reach us?

Email: [email protected]: www.rally-emag.comFacebook: www.facebook.com/emagrallyTwitter: @emagrallyIssuu: www.issuu.com/rally-emag

ERCacropolis rallySpeed or Survival?

Page 20

INTERVIEWsven smeetsOne-on-One

Page 24

WRCrally de portugalMeeke is back! Page 8

ErcAzores Airlines RallyDance on the volcanoes

Page 40

This month

National championshipsSezoensrally (Belgium)Pirelli Carlisls Rally (GB)ELE Rally (The Netherlands)Page 46

Rally de Portugal / Review

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rally de portugal

based in: Porto

Date: 19-22/5/16

number of stages: 19

Shortest stage: Porto street stage 1.85 km

longest stage: amarante 37,67 km

total stage distance:368 kmSurface: Gravel


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meekeis

back!

After Argentina you could predict two things: Hyundai would be on a high and willing to repeat this result, while on the other hand Volkswagen would be poised to revenge its defeat there (inter-rupting a twelve(!) rally winning spree for the German team. That might be true but there was one competitor feared by all: Citroën or more adequately Kris Meeke. Would he be the spoilsport for the other contenders?

Words: Harry van VeenendaalImages: Erik van ‘t Land

Strong entry

Everyone was there in Porto, Por-tugal’s second port after Lisbon. In part of this port a locality called Matosinhos was host to the ser-vicepark and Rally HQ. Walking across this service park we see all the familiar names at Volkswa-gen and M-Sport. At Hyundai we see an extra tower on their service area that because they now have four cars? The fourth car is an ‘old’ 2015 spec i20 WRC for Kevin Abbring in his first WRC outing of the season.

Citroën return

Next to the VW-area we notice two Citroëns for Kris Meeke and Stéphane Lefebvre. They rum un-der the banner of the Abu Dhabi

World Rallyteam because Citroën as we know has a ‘sabbatical’ they use to develop their new rally weapon. In the field of the route there are very small changes. So it is all familiar battleground to most of the competitors. The sur-face is still gravel so discussions about starting order are evident.

Shakedown

Shakedown is a short (motorway) drive away from Matosinhos and is incorporated in a rally cross track together with a karting track. It is an attractive location with a big jump. Fastest time is for Neu-ville.

Together with Ouninpohja’s, Yel-low House Jump, and Monte Ler-no’s Micky’s jump, Fafe this year’s PowerStage in Portugal, is one of the most infamous jumps in WRC. Tens of thousands of fans go there every year though it means walking for miles and miles in the blistering sun and the only shade coming from the huge windmills generating power for a large area. The stage or part of it has been

used many times already. When the rally itself was taken south the Fafe stage was the warm up for the actual rally as teams came to Por-tugal one week earlier to compete in the Fafe sprint. In the past spec-tator control was a reason to leave the north. That changed consider-ably. And it is it one of the reasons why Portugal went back north.

Fafe


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Big crowds gather on every stage in Portugal, also on the shakedown.

Luckily it doesn’t happen often but in Portugal there were three fires. It all started with Hayden Paddon. A change in the road surface caused him to lose the balance in his car and he went off. Unfortunately the undergrowth immediately started to burn. He started to extinguish the flames but was beaten by their speed. He couldn’t do anything but looking how the flames destroyed his car. A similar incident some

ten meters from Paddon occurred for Ott Tänak. He was luckier and could stop the fire in time. Hen-ning Solberg was next. Though earlier reports (mostly by him self) indicated he himself extinguished the fire with his undershirt, it was later revealed he was supervis-ing the proceedings. He did how-ever take his shirt off according to WRC radio’s Becs Williams.

Fire

Drama on day one

On Thursday night two stages had to be run in the streets of Lousada. They were not the most exciting street stages ever seen, but thou-sands of enthusiastic Portuguese spectators did not agree with us. They lined the streets loudly cheer-ing their favourites. On stage one it was Ogier who imposed himself. The second stage was for Kris Meeke. With a five second lead he can gp to sleep before the real rally starts. Right from the start of the first stage Meeke shows what he has in mind for this weekend. He wants to win. He doesn’t show any signs of rustiness and starts winning stages. Only once

every now and then some other drivers interrupt his winning

spree. On stage 4 it is Lat-vala who is faster and

Neuville wins both Porto Street stag-es at the end of Friday. But Meeke is leading the rally with an advan-tage of just over half a minute over Sebastien Ogier. Jari Matti Latvala has dropped down the leader board after a large pothole took his power steering on the demanding Ponte de Lima stage. He lost 45 seconds in the process but then had to struggle for four stages without power steer-ing. His days in the gym paid divi-dend then because driving a WRC without power steering is quite an ef-fort. Aching arms and blisters on his fingers were the result.

As you can read in a boxed text on these pages three drivers had a fire. Hayden Paddon’s car was never go-ing anywhere anymore; Ott Tänak and Henning Solberg could luckily restart the next day.

Latvala was of to a good start until a large pothole destroyed his powersteering and all hopes of a win in the process.

Image: Red Bull Media Pool

Due to the fire the Ponte de Lima stage unsurprisingly was can-celled and the times for drivers that couldn’t run the stage were given based upon the result of the first passing of the stage. Kris Meeke was lucky, as he had won the previous running of the stage he was given the fastest time again.

Dutchman Kevin Abbring didn’t make it very far in his first WRC outing this year. On stage three (the second Friday stage he clipped a rock and broke his steering. He and Seb Marshall tried to repair the stricken car but they were faced with a stuck bolt they couldn’t remove. So they had to retire for the day.

At the end of the day it was Kris Meeke who was leading, followed by Ogier, Mikkelsen and Neuville. Latvala had dropped to ninth after his power exercise of today. The gap between him and first place being almost four minutes.

Meeke builds on his lead

Meeke still went fast on Satur-day’s opening loop and won all three stages. Then he backed off a bit, for precaution reasons he took an extra spare tyre and con-solidated his lead that was still 45 seconds at the end of the day. By

then both Khalid Al Qassimi and Stéphane Lefebvre had to retire for the day and early in the day Kevin Abbring retired for the sec-ond time. Again misfortune as he clipped a rock and broke his sus-pension.

Final battle

Two stage wins for Mikkelsen and two for Ogier is all we can say about Portugal Sunday. Mikkels-en passed Ogier on the first stage and earned the runner up posi-tion. Ogier won the PowerStage and Meeke the rally. His second WRC victory and Citroën’s 95th. Ogier is still leading the drivers championship and Volkswagen the Constructor’s.

TOP: Abbring made his first start of the season but it would become a rally he

would to forget very quickly.

MIDDLE: Expectations rose quickly after Paddon took his maiden win in Argen-

tina, a small error with big consequences put him with his feet firmly back on the

ground.

BOTTOM: Behind enemy lines, Meeke surrounded by the Volkswagen crews, but

it’s Meeke who finished on top.

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Rally de Portugal / Round-up

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In Portugal the only discussion in the Volkswagen service area was about starting order. Se-bastien Ogier desperately tried to be neutral and talk about the event. But before you know it he was talking about starting order again. “Rallies like these are boring to me. I drive fast-er than ever but never get the result I want. Of course I want the championship but I also want to win rallies. And the FIA doesn’t want me to win rallies. But that’s the way it is so I’ll have to deal with it.” Elsewhere in his issue you can read what Volkswagen sporting manager Sven Smeets thinks about it. “We fully are behind Ogier, but I also like to think about the big-ger picture.” Team colleague Jari Matti Latvala is his usual diplomatic self. “I think clean-ing the road is a severe pun-ishment for being the leader in the championship. But in some places the disadvantage is not so big and in others it’s an ad-vantage to be first on the road. In Portugal it depends a lot on the weather, will it be dry or will it rain. But everyone agreed the one to watch was Kris Meeke. He could start way down the line and therefore have a clean road and on top of that he

doesn’t have any champion-ship obligations.

But during the rally, especially on the last two days, Ogiers biggest challenger was team-mate Mikkelsen. He was in caution mode all day on Friday but on Saturday he decided he was fed up with driving care-fully and started to charging and a charging Mikkelsen is something to keep a watchful eye on if you’re also aiming for a top position, from Saturday onwards he hardly scored any times outside the top three. So he can be happy with the run-ner up position. Sebastien Ogier is going fast as well, but like anticipated road sweeping in Portugal does not match with driving super fast times. However it takes Mik-kelsen till stage 16 to overtake his teamleader. Like so many other rallies the last few years, it wasn’t Latvala’s rally. A wrong set up and consequently not having the confidence to go all the way threw him back and then he lost power steering. It was heavy exercise for him be-fore he could have it repaired and when he aimed to win the PowerStage, Meeke deprived him of that one too.

Volkswagen Motorsport

Round-up

Hyundai Motorsport Not a happy weekend for Hyun-dai. Before the rally there was a relaxed atmosphere, they were still celebrating their Argentina win and Hayden Paddon happily discussed his win in Argentina. The service area was busy as there were four cars there, three New Generation i20’s for Paddon, Sordo and Neuville, and another i20 but in 2015 spec for Dutchman Abbring.

The start of the rally wasn’t very easy. Two cars did not make it to the end of the day. In the begin-ning it still looked quite promising with Sordo, Neuville and Paddon, near the top. But the first disap-pointment came, as Kevin Abbring did not make it through stage 3. An even bigger disappointment came when Paddon went off with big consequences.

Best-placed man was Dani Sor-do who for the third time scored a 4th place. He definitely is the most reliable driver of the Korean manufacturer. Where in the past he was thought to be the tarmac specialist he now just as eas-ily scores on softer surfaces. On Friday he was still chasing a po-dium position but on Saturday he couldn’t hold of Mikkelsen. Al in all a good result for the Spaniard or

as he said himself: Overall, fourth place is not too bad. For Neuville it was a mixed feelings rally. He did reasonably well and even won a few stages but his biggest set back was on Saturday when his Hyundai stranded mid stage with an empty fueltank. “We showed reasonable performance but there are things we can still improve.”

Hayden Paddon landed on his feet again after having enjoyed his first victory. The landing took place at Friday’s Ponte de Lima stage. He had a slight off and landed in the bushes somewhat lower than the road. The very dry bush im-mediately were ignited by the Hyundai’s exhaust. Unfortunately things went very rapidly then and the whole car burnt completely to cinders. What a way to end a stage. It meant the Hyundai me-chanics had to build a completely new car for Sardinia.

Kevin Abbring wants to forget about his race as soon as possi-ble. Two rocks broke his suspen-sion on two separate occasions in the beginning of day two and day three. His stage mileage was lim-ited to just over thirty kilometres whereas he told us before the ral-ly that he aimed at making more miles! Mission not accomplished.Round-up

Rally de Portugal / Round-up

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Camilli was the best of the regular M-Sport drivers. He showed per-fectly that Malcolm Wilson had not ben wrong when he selected him for a place in the M-Sport team. “He will surprise all of you”, he once told us. And Portugal proved him right. Camilli seems to grow every rally and now reports in the top sections every now and then. The next stage will bring him stage wins and who knows what will fol-low. We cannot say that about Mads Østberg. His consistent track record still kept him in third position but the differences are very small and this classification could change overnight. It puz-zles us a bit what is happening to Østberg. He is definitely an expe-rienced, consistent and pretty fast driver, but for some reason he cannot find his rhythm in the car. Although at several occasions he will show you differently. Before the season started Østberg was destined to be the mentor of his young colleague but in the situa-tion he is now in, he needs men-toring himself. He is lucky that Malcolm Wilson is quite good in this field but Wilson too seems to have second thoughts. Still the M-Sport tea mboss keeps on saying that Mads perhapsis not his usual self but that he will soon be back

in his old form: fast and reliable. We know he is fast, we just have to find out why he is not delivering at this moment.

M-Sport is the biggest supplier of customer cars and this also applies in WRC. Lorenzo Bertelli had a foot injury form a football match at home and couldn’t start. Henning Solberg however found some money that will bring him into Poland. On Friday it almost went completely wrong for the Norwegian. He slid off the road and like Paddon had to deal with a fire. He came back the next day and finished 27th, not his best re-sult ever… After his Dakar adven-tures Martin Prokop managed to find some money for a new WRC appearance In Portugal he could capitalize some points by being 8th.

Ott Tänak would rather forget this rally. It ended quite soon by ex-tinguishing a fire that threatened his Fiesta after an off. He retired and is already focussing again on Italy. The last regular contender in an M-Sport manufactured car was Yazeed Al-Rajhi. He ended the rally in 11th.

M-Sport World Rally Team

Round-up

Abu Dhabi World Rallyteam As we know Citroën is not a regu-lar team in he Championship this year. But every now and then we see some Citroëns on the stages. This time the man most feared by his colleagues was Kris Meeke. Though he himself was down siz-ing his chances by stating he was just here to keep the feeling and to have fun. No one believed him. Without any championship stress he was considered a dangerous contender. Some even thought that he should not be there as he was influencing the championship by depriving regular contenders from getting points. Meeke did not bother too much. He was rap-idly in form again and started to do exactly what others predicted, winning stages and taking the lead. Of course he started his charge in 13th place. After most of the World Rally Cars had suf-ficiently cleaned the road for him. But what was more important was that Meeke showed hardly any signs of being rusty and nor did his DS3. Apparently his test work for the 2017 C3 gave him so many good vibes that just climbing in his ‘old’ car again was enough to kick start him. Once in the top of the classification he never left it again and al the others could just sit and look at it.

Stéphane Lefebvre is still in his apprentice years. Where Meeke is present to keep up his competi-tion experience, Lefebvre’s there to build this experience. On Friday he did more than that and found himself in sixth place. A classifica-tion he would have signed for be-fore the rally. Unfortunately early next morning he received a les-son in character building when he encountered a rock and broke his suspension. But character build-ing is also part of the learning process. On Sunday he returned and at the end of the day he was back where he came from, setting a fifth fastest time on the Power-Stage. He finished 36th, but who really cares he did what he came for: gaining experience.

Meanwhile at Citroën Meeke and Lefebvre were in Por-tugal, prior to the rally, doing a four-day test in the Algarve, former Rally Portugal territory. They en-countered various kinds of weath-er “but” as Yves Matton said, “the drivers keep smiling. The car is good now while they have anoth-er eight months of making it even better before next year’s start.”

Round-up

Overall final classification

1. Meeke-Nagle Citroën DS3 WRC 3:59:01.02. Mikkelsen-Jaeger Synnevaag VW Polo WRC +29.73. Ogier-Ingrassia VW Polo WRC +34.54. Sordo-Marti Hyundai i20 WRC +1:37.15. Camilli-Veillas Ford Fiesta WRC +4:01.66. Latvala-Anttila VW Polo WRC +4:06.97. Ostberg-Floene Ford Fiesta WRC +6:53.68. Prokop-Tomanek Ford Fiesta WRC +10:24.19. Tidemand-Andersson Skoda Fabia R5 +11:45.210. Fuchs-Mussano Skoda Fabia R5 +13:14.0

2016 FIA WRCManufacturers’ Standings1. Volkswagen Motorsport 145 2. Hyundai Motorspor t 96 3. M-Sport World Rally Team 82 4. Volkswagen Motorsport Ii 70 5. Hyundai Motorsport N 51 6. Dmack World Rally Team 30 7. Jipocar Czech National Team 12 8. YAZEED RACING 4

Rally de Portugal / Standings

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2016 FIA WRCDrivers’ Standings1. Sebastien Ogier 114 2. Andreas Mikkelsen 67 3. Mads Ostberg 58 4. Hayden Paddon 57 5. Dani Sordo 56 6. Jari-Matti Latvala 37 7. Kris Meeke 26 8. Ott Tanak 24 9. Thierry Neuville 23 10. Eric Camilli 14

One-on-One with Sven Smeets

Words: Harry van Veenendaal; Images: PR(this page) ; Erik van’t Land (all other images)

Interview / Sven Smeets

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At Rally de Portugal we talked to Sven Smeets, Motorsport Director of Volkswa-gen AG about his adventures in China 1999. You’ll see that story in the next issue of Ral-ly-eMag. But talking to him brings up other issues too. So we start with some talks of WRC as it is now.

During our ‘China talk’ we touched on the mat-ter of Rally 2 and asked his opinion:

Smeets: Rally 2 is nice but I’m not always in favour of it. The FIA is always busy making the rallies more challenging and enduring, but if you retire like in Argentina with only ten manu-

facturer’s cars, then you only have to drive the Sunday stages and you still get a point. I don’t feel that is right. I’m sure that if a team retires early in the rally they will restart again, also if they cannot get points. Especially in long haul events, everyone is there so there are hard-ly any additional costs involved and you can easily go testing then. That is valuable for the teams as you can do the testing in competi-tive conditions, but getting points for that is not good I think. And it is not necessary. Young pilots for example need to get the experience so their team bosses will tell them to go testing and then earning points feels a bit strange.

Sven Smeets

Sporting Directorat

Volkswagen Motorsport

Interview / Sven Smeets

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ReM: What do you think about the starting order rules?

Smeets: If I look at it from a sporting point of view I totally agree with Ogier. I don’t think it’s fair that, because he is leading the championship, he has to be punished. Of course if you look at the bigger picture you also have to look at the championship. Of course if you’re leading the championship you have to open and consequently sweep the road. If however you’re running way down the order you get a big advantage. Like Kris (Meeke, ed.) for example, he doesn’t compete the whole championship so will be starting as fourteenth or something and if Kris does his job properly for two days in the way we know he can do it, then Ogier can do whatever he wants but he doesn’t stand a chance. Of course he is driving to be cham-pion, but as he says “I also want to win rallies. If the chances to win events are taken away form me that’s regrettable. I don’t mind to get beaten on an equal playing field. In Argentina for example, on the last stage I was beaten in speed and Paddon was simply faster. I don’t have a problem with that and I was one of the first to congratulate him. But the fact he was beating me on the two first days while he was seventh on the road is quite frustrating.” Of course someone has to start as first and that is not fair ei-ther but do you have to do it for two days?

Ogier doesn’t mind opening on the first day. “I’m leading the champion-ship so I have to carry that burden, but now they have taken away the Rally2 contenders on the Saturday it don’t have a chance to make up for the lost time of the Friday. Also the Sunday stages are becoming shorter and shorter so…” In that area I agree with him and we fully support him in that but.

ReM: But the final stage in Argentina was quite exciting and a lot of people were watching it.

Smeets: Yes, like I said we also have to look at the championship and if the championship has an interest in doing it this way then his performance will even be bigger if at the end of the season he is world champion again. But if no one follows the championship his performance will not be noticed and Ogier is not such a big name anymore. So if we look at the context at this moment, it’s working. But perhaps we can do some fine-tuning that

doesn’t punish the championship leader so much.

ReM: Maybe others have to drive faster and come closer…

Smeets: We have been looking at it last year. No one on the toplevel was consistent. Jari had three zero’s in the beginning of the season and then it’s already over. This year it doesn’t look much different. Last year Meeke had a good result and then a bad result and then a good result again fol-lowed by a bad result. Loeb for example had to fight the championship twice in Wales because Hirvonen had been scoring solid points in every rally of those seasons. You can’t afford not to score points. In that field Ogier is very good. He seldom makes mistakes.

ReM: Why did Ogier lose so much time on the last stage in Argentina. Had he worn out his tyres?

Smeets: No, after 400 meters in the stage he noticed the stage had deteri-orated more than anticipated. Therefor he was a bit distracted and started

Smeets on the starting order: “Of course someone has to start first on the road, and it’s not fair for anyone, but do you have to do it for two days?”

thinking and then it’s over. The others had nothing to lose. Paddon had been second once before; he couldn’t score points for the Hyundai A-team. So he could drive all or nothing. As you could see from his on-boards he just dropped the pedal to the metal and kept it there. Then Ogier couldn’t do anything anympore. Apart from that this stage doesn’t suit him. But on on the middle stage he had been amazing and we hadn’t expected this outcome. But I agree it was exciting, it’s a pity our man did not win, but in the end this is the way it should be.

ReM: Isn’t it also good if it’s not a Volkswagen show all the time?

Smeets: To be honest we don’t want a Volkswagen show. But still the management of Volkswagen was not amused and we had to explain why we did not win where we did have a chance to do so. We then had to ex-plain that excitement is also important for the fans so that keep on watch-ing WRC. Anyway the board recently extended our contract until 2019. Halfway 2018 we will discuss our WRC future. But that is now this can change overnight. I’ve seen it happen before.

ReM: What about the new car?

Smeets: Of course we have teething problems, as there are quite a few changes. The aerodynamics is much freer and that is a domain we have not been playing with until now. The car we are now testing is not the final car we’re just experimenting because there is so much more freedom than before. Another thing is the hydraulic centre diff, we haven’t had that for along time in WRC and technology of course hasn’t stopped devel-oping. The diffs we use today are completely different from the ones in 2015. And the same applies to the power of the engine. Horsepower will increase quite a bit so the cars will probably be faster. The pilots find it fantastic.

ReM: What will the effects of these changes, especially the aerodynam-ics, be on a rallycar?

Smeets: Well nobody knows and we’ll have to find out. It will always have some advantages. In a rally like in Finland it will definitely have some ad-vantages but how much? But at least our aerodynamic developers were quite happy with the extra freedom so they can do more then before.

ReM: The WRC promoter wants more excitement, Will these changes bring enough of this excitement to rallying?

Smeets: It can and may be faster and more exciting, but looking at the im-ages of WRC, you cannot say it is not exciting, can you? The fastest route is always driving as cleanly as possible. Sideway action may be nice to watch but it’s not faster. So the drivers will always choose this method. The cars however will be more impressive. If you make a photo of the car today or our car next year you can already see that a static photo of the new car looks faster. Normal people who are not watching rallying every day will say: “Wow is that also a Polo?” So we have that effect already but it’s still much more evident in for example a rally cross car. And if you see it on the stages, I don’t know. As I said you would see it in Finland with it’s very fast stages, how it will affect other rallies? We’ll have to wait and see.

Another no-win in Portugal for Volkswagen means Smeets has some more explain-ing to do at the Volkswagen HQ.

Seajets Acropolis Rally

Based in: Lamia

6-8/05/2016

Number of stages: Longest stage: Shortest stage: Total stage distance:

Surface: Gravel

12Elatia/Karya, 33.86 km

Rengini, 11.61 km232 km

Seajets Acropolis Rally / Review

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Speed! or survival?Heat. Dust. Sun. Rocks.Many many rocks.

Welcome, to the Acropolis.

The Greek round of the European Rally Championship is a classic event and throughout history has built a reputation for itself as the ulti-mate car breaker. Sure Cyprus and Sardinia are rough too, the roads in Portugal and the Azores can get pretty rutted, but in the end, there is nothing like the Acropolis.

Words: Steven van VeenendaalImages: PR

Seajets Acropolis Rally / Review

26/60

HistoryThis year’s event brought the crews back to some of the old stages that haven’t been in the rally for some time, but form part of the rich history of the event: Fthiotida and Fok-ida. It brings the route inland to Central Greece after a long stint in more coastal regions.

OopsIt doesn’t take long for the rally to claim its first victim. On the very first stage of the event Kajetan Kajetanowicz gets caught out. In a very slow corner he manages to roll his Fiesta. Although the damage isn’t too severe, the car ends up on its roof and it takes a very long time to get it back on its wheels. He eventually managed to do so, but lost 14 minutes in the process, ef-fectively ending his rally or at least any chance of victory.

SurpriseWith Kajetanowicz out of the way, Lukyanuk looked as though he had a clear path to victory, after all, who had been able to challenge the two title favourites? There was one young man with dif-ferent ideas though. Making

his debut in an R5 car, Ralfs Sirmacis was the surprise of the event. The youngster stunned the opposition by winning the opening stage and when Lukyanuk suf-fered a puncture, he was able to open up a sizeable 26 second lead. Lukyanuk hit back on the next stage but was slapped with a 10 second penalty for a jump start. Things heated up in the afternoon when both driv-ers pushed to the limit, and spun! With tyre wear becom-ing a big issue for the drivers, Lukyanuk made the smart decision to hold back a little and preserve his tyres for the final stage. Heavy rain turned the dust of the final stage into mud and Lukyanuk was able to capitalize on his, slightly, less battered tyres. He took 12 seconds back and when his jump start penalty was withdrawn, he pipped Sirma-cis to hold the lead at the end of an eventful opening leg.Behind the leading duo, Ja-romir Tarabus and local hero Lambros Athanassou-los were fighting for the final podium spot, with Tarabus holding the early advantage.

‘Kajto’ fought back bravely after an early roll.

Lukyanuk challenged for the win, but experienced the relentless nature of the Greek stages.

Better than nothingKajetanowicz wasted no time in his attempt to climb back up the leaderboard after his opening stage error. He pi-loted his battered Fiesta to a stage win on the very next stage and logged three more stage wins on the opening day. On the second day, he won al but one stage, show-ing his ability and taking eleven points for his cham-pionship campaign, better than nothing.

The battle continuesUp front the battle between Lukyanuk and Sirmacis con-tinued. Lukyanuk had just two seconds in hand at the start of the day and knew he would have his work cut out for him to bring home the silverware with the eager Sirmacis in hot pursuit. Con-fidence wasn’t an issue for the young Latvian when he was asked about his goals before his maiden R5 out-ing “I am here to fight for the win.” Right, that’s at least a sufficient level of self-confi-dence.

Another puncture on the opening stage of the second

day for Lukyanuk cost him twenty seconds and handed the lead back to Sirmacis. Could he live up to his words an indeed take the win?

A turn for the worseJust two stages later, things started to look even beter for Sirmacis. On the longest stage of the rally, the Elatia/Karya test, Lukyanuk suf-fered a broken suspension arm and lost 17 minutes try-ing to fix the issue. Lukya-nuk’s demise put Sirmacis in pole position to claim vic-tory on his R5 debut. Hold-ing a two minute lead over his nearest rival, Sirmacis now had just one opponent left, himself. If he can keep his cool and avoid any is-sues, the top step of the po-dium would surely be his. In remarkably comfortable fashion, he did just that and got to spray the sweet sweet champagne at the end of it all. Lukyanuk managed to bring his car home, but only in tenth, collecting the final championship points, but still losing ground to Ka-jetanowicz in the title fight.

‘I am here to fight for the win’ Big words from R5 newcomer Sirmacis...

An emotional second place for Lambros Athanassoulas.

2016 FIA ERC Drivers’ Standings

1. Kajetan Kajetanowicz Ford Fiesta R5 71 pts2. Alexey Lukyanuk Ford Fiesta R5 46 pts3. Craig Breen Citroen DS3 R5 38 pts4. Ralfs Sirmacis Skoda Fabia R5 37 pts5. Lambros Athanassoulas Skoda Fabia R5 27 pts6. Jaromir Tarabus Skoda Fabia R5 27 pts7. Luis Monzon Artilles Citroen DS3 R5 25 pts8. Wojchiech Chuchala Subaru Impreza STi 24 pts9. Alastair Fisher Ford Fiesta R5 23 pts10. Yonaton Perez Suarez Ford Fiesta R5 20 pts


1. Sirmacis-Simins Skoda Fabia R5 2:53:12.52. Athanassoulas-Panayiotounis Skoda Fabia R5 +2.10.33. Tarabus-Trunkat Skoda Fabia R5 +2.42.44. Jeets-Toom Skoda Fabia R5 +5.41.95. Chuchala-Dymurski Subaru Impreza STi +8.19.96. Koltun-Pleskot Ford Fiesta R5 +9.11.17. Kasperczyk-Syty Ford Fiesta R5 +10.40.48. Kajetanowicz-Baran Ford Fiesta R5 +13.58.19. Rios-Vargas Pena Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X +20.09.610. Lukyanuk-Kapustin Ford Fiesta R5 +20.15.5

Seajets Acropolis Rally

the roadtochina pt. IV

The Road to China / 1999 Review

33/60

party like it’s

(china)1999

In this episode of Road to China we take you back to the actual rally as it took place some 17 years ago. It was an enormous difference with rallying, as we know it today. And most of the drivers did not know what to expect, in a way that will be the same today. In this report on the 1999 China rally we try to show you that there has been some evo-lution in rallying since 1999.Unfortunately we weren’t there in China in 1999, so we had to throw in some images from an other event of that year.

Words: Harry van VeenendaalImages: Harry van Veenendaal

China was unknown territory to most of the drivers actively fighting the 1999 championship. With the ex-ception of some drivers who com-peted here when it was an Asian Pacific qualifier in the two years before it became a WRC qualifier: Colin McRae who had won both events, Piero Liatti (second in 1998) and Kenneth Eriksson (second in 1997). They all drove a Subaru S3. So just like the Subaru team and tyre supplier Pirelli they were the only ones who had some previ-ous knowledge of the event. On the other hand WRC rallying seemed to be unknown territory to the people living in the area. There was hardly any motorised traffic there and a car was still something terrifying but also exciting. Colin McRae said that in the earlier runnings of the event he had always been confident in the

stages but the road sections scared him because of the local people who had no idea about the speed of a rally car and were swerving around on their bicycles and other means of non-motorised transport. The general feeling was China was something never experienced in WRC before. The roads were tough-er and bumpier and every stage brought another kind of gravel. The days before the actual start of the rally, had not been very reassuring, as the rain had changed the stag-es into slippery mud tracks. There were even some drivers, voiced by Carlos Sainz, who did not want to start. “It’s too dangerous” he said, as not only the roads were bad, but also mist and clouds reduced visibility, making it impos-sible for helicopters to fly.

China was the eleventh round of the 1999 WRC season, dominat-ed by Tommi Mäkinen with three victories in his Mitsubishi Lancer EVO6. Of the other drivers pre-sent in China, Colin McRae (Ford Focus RS WRC ’99) and Juha Kankkunen (Subaru Impreza S5 WRC ‘99) had two wins and Rich-ard Burns also in a Subaru, had one. Though second in the over-all standings before China Didier

Auriol (Toyota Corolla WRC) still had no victory to his name. Of the competitors still active in WRC to-day, only Auriol’s co driver Denis Giraudet was present in this WRC round in China. Others still ac-tive in WRC, though not as com-petitors, include Sven Smeets who was in the hot seat next to Freddy Loix. In the next issue of Rally-eMag he will tell us his adventures.

The 1999 contenders

The Road to China / 1999 Review

34/60

The late nineties saw changes in tobacco marketing. No 555 branding in Finland, while they were the main sponsor of Rally China.

Bob Dylan was singing about it as far back as in the sixties of last cen-tury but it still applies. You’ll see that from the story but also from the pictures. Unfortunately we did not have any pictures from Rally China in those days. We were pre-sent at Rally Finland that was run only weeks before China. This was in the analogue era so the quality

of the pictures is not up to our usu-al standards. We do publish them however as we feel they show something of the atmosphere in those days. And it’s not only the cars that have changed, look at the service area for instance. We hope you appreciate this piece of WRC history and don’t judge us on the technical quality of the pictures.

The times they are a changing

The waters around you have grown…Continuing heavy rains made the stages almost undrivable. The cars were slipping and sliding all over the place and even Pirelli, though having been here before did not have the answer to these dreadful circumstances. The two runnings of Zhung Hu Gou Men, with just over 33 kilometres the longest stage of the rally were cancelled. As Mäki-nen was leading the championship at the time, he was first on the road and almost first to get of. He hit a tree in a long right-hand corner and lost some time. Auriol initially was a bit slower but passes Mäkinen. Kank-kunen is next and is not happy with

road conditions: “It’s rapid bumpy and it makes Greece look like

child’s play!” At the end of the day Burns is leading

Auriol, Mäkinen, Kankkunen, Sainz and Rovanperä.CasualtiesQuite a few top contenders are missing after day one. Only about one kilometre was the total stage length that both McRae and Thom-as Rådstrōm competed here. “We ran over a rock which we had in our notes,” explains the Scotsman. “It did not seem to be so bad. The tracks of the others also passed the rock and continued.” But for the two Ford drivers it was over as Rådstrōm hit the same rock and also had to retire. Freddy Loix complained that the stricken McRae blocked his passage but on stage seven he also went off and rolled his Mitsubi-shi. Pierro Liatti was the last victim of the day. His Seat developed an engine failure that made him stop after stage 8.

Colin McRae’s Rally China didn’t last long, at all!

Drenched to the boneA seemingly everlasting rain drenched the stages changing them into mud tracks. After some stages Richard Burns had to re-move 35 kilo’s of mud clinging to his car. It’s one of the explana-tions for the fact that he was slower than Auriol, but the actual reason was that Auriol had chosen better tyres and he had a slightly differ-ent set up than earlier as he low-ered his car a bit. It paid dividend as he drove remarkable times. Though co-driver Denis Giraudet did not think so initially. “That is not such a good time,” he told his driver at the finish of a stage. “Wait and see the times of the others,” Auriol answered. “I think it was a good time!” He proved to be right as at the end of the day he was leading the rally. But that did not go easy as Mäkinen was heading a charge. Earlier he had lost 40

seconds after an off road excur-sion but in the afternoon he drove three scratches by changing his setup. It brought him third place 37 seconds behind leader Auriol. The last day the weather did not improve. It was all rain, rain and rain. The competition changed into mud wrestling. The reports from gravel crews were different from the actual situation so the circumstances were worse than anticipated. Before the end of the rally Mäkinen went off again and retired. Sainz was slowed by an issue in his gearbox this paved the way for Auriol and on his very narrow, cut tyres he ‘mudplaned’ to his first victory. Mäkinen’s re-tirement did not stop him from winning the championship and Auriol’s victory ‘only’ brought him third place, as Richard Burns won the last two rounds and became runner up.

TOP: Makinen’s title aspirations suffered a blow in China when he retired and Auriol

won.

MIDDLE: Back than the teams didn’t have to run all events, Skoda opted to skip

China.

BOTTOM: The rear of Auriol’s Coroll, that’s all his opponents got to see.


1. Auriol-Giraudet Toyota Corolla WRC 3:40:52.92. Burns-Reid Subaru Impreza S5 WRC ‘99 +55.83. Sainz-Moya Toyota Corolla WRC +2:19.44. Kankkunen-Repo Subaru Impreza S5 WRC ‘99 +5:18.15. Rovanperä-Pietiläinen Seat Cordoba WRC EVO 2 +9:15.46. Isik-Bodur Toyota Corolla WRC +16:05.77. Araï-Freeman Subaru Impreza WRX +19:55.98. Trelles-Christie Mitsubishi Lancer EVO V +27:57.09. Taguchi-Teoh Mitsubishi Lancer EVO VI +31:10.210. A. McRae-Senior Hyundai Coupé Kit Car EVO 2 +33:15.1

555 Rally China 1999

Based in: Huairou

17-19/09/1999


Surface: Gravel

22 (2 were cancelled so effectively 20)Da Xi Shan, 26.46 km

Tou Dao Xue, 7.00 km385.72km (Effectively run: 319.58km)

Azores Airlines Rally

Based in: Ponta Delgada

02-04/06/2016


Surface: Gravel

16Sete Cidades, 25.62 km

Grupo Marques, 3.95 km216 km

Azores Airlines Rally / Review

41/60

dance on the

volcanoThe yearly dance on the vol-canoes, better known as the Azores Rally might just be the most picturesque rally of the season. The paradise islands of the Azores are located in the Atlantic Ocean just about mid-way between Europe and the American continent, but they are part of Europe. Lucky for us be-cause it allows us to enjoy their spectacular beauty as they form the backdrop for round four of the European Rally Champion-ship.

Words: Steven van VeenendaalImages: PR

Azores Airlines Rally / Review

42/60

The Third MusketeerAs expected, this year’s Eu-ropean Rally Championship campaign is turning into a two-way fight as Kajetanow-icz and Lukyanuk duke it out for the title. In Ireland Craig Breen took the spoils, but he was only around for a one-off outing. Then the big surprise came in Greece as the third musketeer presented him-self. Young and brash, in true d’Artagnan style, Ralfs Sima-rcis was the surprise winner of the Acropolis Rally. In only his first ever competitive out-ing in an R5 car, Sirmacis clinched his first victory and launched himself onto the ERC scene (or international rallying scene for that mat-ter). From a young talent, he suddenly became a danger-ous outsider in the rallies to come.

The other ERC regulars are clearly incapable of truly competing with Kajetanow-icz and Lukyanuk for victo-ries, but perhaps a local hero springs a surprise? With no less than 25(!) R5 cars taking to the start in the Azores, it’s clear that at least there are

enough contestants, hopeful to put their names in the his-tory books.

Clear intentionsOn the short opening day the tone is immediately set. The three musketeers are indeed in charge, but they face stiff opposition from a truly lo-cal hero. Ricardo Moura hails from the Azores and as such, knows the stages around the island like the back of his hand. Moura had been switching between R5/S2000 cars on some events and then driving a group N Mitsubishi on other events for a few years before mak-ing the full time switch to a Ford Fiesta R5 last year

Clearly in a good rhythm with the car he was warming the hearts of the Portuguese fans, he even charges into the lead on stage two. He has to forfeit the lead im-mediately on the next stage though when Kajetanowicz overtakes him again. But his intentions are clear, Moura is not here to play along nicely, he is here to win.

After winning the Acropolis, Ralfs Sirmacis is suddenly a contender.

Ricardo Moura looked to attack on his home event.

The weatherAs the Azores are situated smack in the middle of the ocean, they are constantly ex-posed to the elements. Strong winds are never far away and the weather is likely to change every hour or so. The open-ing evening is no exception and as Kajetanowicz stuggles with his tyre choice, Sirmacis is the one to take advantage and move up to second, just one second behind the Pole.

Growing gapsOn the second day of the ral-ly, Kajetanowicz and Lukya-nuk strap themselves in good and set out to show the world that they are indeed in a class of their own. As the pace is upped, Moura is struggling for confidence in both him-self and the car and Sirmacis concludes that his pacenotes aren’t fully spot on yet.

Lukyanuk blitzes through the opening test and immediately overhauls Kajetanowicz. As the fog settles in on the next stage Kajetanowicz returns the favour. Next up is the in-famous Sete Cidades stage around the volcano’s caldera, without doubt the most sce-

nic stage in the world. Again it’s Kajetanowicz who sets the fastest time to increase his lead. In the afternoon Lukya-nuk goes into full-on Super-man mode. He closes the gap to 7 seconds before the second run through Sete Ci-dades. Both drivers hit one of the numerous banks but Ka-jetanowicz is the unlucky one as he damages his suspen-sion in the process and has to sit and watch as Lukyanuk takes a ten second lead into the final day.

It ain’t over untill…Lady luck isn’t on Kajetanow-icz’ side as he breaks a drive-shaft on the final day and has to run most of the stages with just rear-wheel drive, effec-tively ending his charge for victory. Not much later though, Lukyanuk hits trouble too. A spin and a loose turbo pipe cost him around half a min-ute and suddenly… Moura is the new leader! Despite a last minute effort by Lukyanuk the gap is simply to big to over-come on the remaining stag-es and a cleearly emotional Moura is the surprise winner of the event and adds his name the event’s history books.

As Kajetanowicz hit trouble, Lukyanuk looked destined for glory.

Quick, but unfortunate, Kajetanowicz was happy with third after a difficult rally.

2016 FIA ERC Drivers’ Standings

1. Kajetan Kajetanowicz Ford Fiesta R5 71 pts2. Alexey Lukyanuk Ford Fiesta R5 46 pts3. Craig Breen Citroen DS3 R5 38 pts4. Luis Monzon Artilles Citroen DS3 R5 25 pts5. Alastair Fisher Ford Fiesta R5 23 pts6. Yonaton Perez Suarez Ford Fiesta R5 20 pts7. Josh Moffett Ford Fiesta R5 19 pts8. Jonathan Greer Citroen DS3 R5 14 pts9. Wojchiech Chuchala Subaru Impreza STi 11 pts10. Robert Consani Peugeot 208 T16 11 pts


1. Moura-Costa Ford Fiesta R5 2.42.23,52. Lukyanuk-Arnautov Ford Fiesta R5 +26,83. Kajetanowicz-Baran Ford Fiesta R5 +3.23,04. Botka-Szeles Citroen DS3 R5 +5.28,55. Orsak-Smeidler Ford Fiesta R5 +5.34,16. Meireles-Castro Skoda Fabia R5 +5.60,17. Rego-Magalhaes Ford Fiesta R5 +5.46,28. Fontes-Ponte Citroen DS3 R5 +6.17,99. Teodosio-Teixeira Ford Fiesta R5 +7.01,210. Tlustak-Kucera Skoda Fabia R5 +7.30,7

Azores Airlines Rally

Dutch WRC photographer Erik van ‘t Land releases his new calendar.The best action from the WRC from all over the world in 12 pages.

You can order it now! €15 or two for €25 (excl. shipping).Email [email protected] for more info.

Sezoensrally Words: Steven van Veenendaal; Images: PR

Round 5Belgian Rally Championship

Belgian RC / Sezoensrally

47/60

The fifth round of the Belgian Rally Champi-onship, the Sezoensrally, took place around the town of Bocholt. Being in the Limburg region, this effectively makes it the home rally of championship leader Freddy Loix. After four rounds, Loix holds a perfect re-cord and there is nothing he wants more than to continue that run at home.

Although the Sezoensrally is run in just one day, it does boost 15 stages. Additionaly it is the last remaining truly mixed event in the Bel-gian Championship and those loose sections in the stages make it a very challenging event.

So far Loix has won all rounds of the champi-onship and it remains to be seen if there is an-yone in Belgium who can really offer him some competition. Kris Princen is doing a good job, but in the end, he came up short on every rally, the really challenge Loix for the win. Our hopes for good battles thus remain on the shoulders of ‘one day flies’ like Francois Duval who led the previous rally, the Rally de Wallonie before crashing out. No Duval in Bocholt, but there is another veteran who can potentially cause a bit of a stir, former multiple champion Patrick Snijers. He finally got his hands on an R5 car, although it might take a bit of getting used to.

Bocholt

BelgianRally

Championship

B

Belgian RC / Sezoensrally

48/60

Adapting“I have to adapt a bit to the car and get back in the rhythm. This rally will mainly be a test for the Ypres rally as everybody tells me it takes two or three rallies to get used to these kinds of cars. So we will aim for a top five finish and everything better than that will be a bonus.” It would turn out to be a good event for the old champ, as he indeed took fifth overall.

StrugglesAs the rally gets underway, Kris Princen is struggling from the off. “I am fighting with the car. The annoying thing is that our issues aren’t consist-ent. Sometimes we have understeer but than suddenly it changes into oversteer. You can’t compensate for that.” Princen’s struggles show in the times as he loses fifteen seconds to Loix and has Vincent Verschueren breathing down his neck. When Verschueren records his first scratch of the rally, he leapfrogs Princen to take second.

BacktrackingVerschueren’s joy doesn’t last very long though. On stage twelve he mis-judges a square right corner and ends up just a little too much on the out-side of the corner. He tries to drag the car out of the ditch by flooring it, but to no avail. His Skoda spins into the ditch and it requires the assistance of some fans to get back on the road. At that point Verschueren is facing the wrong way has to backtrack a little over the stage, coming very close to colliding with Snijers who was already coming down the stage as well. This off ruins his podium chances as it’s not just Princen who overtakes him, but Irishman Steven Wright as well, who seems to be making his Se-zoensrally outing a yearly affair.

Up front Loix reigns supreme. The Skoda pilot is so dominant that it’s an actual surprise when he doesn’t win a stage… With his fifth successive win in the pocket, he holds a firm grip on the championship lead for which he has so far scored the maximum amount of 100 points.

Verschueren was on course for his best finish of the season untill he went off into a ditch and fell of the podium.

Veteran Patrick Snijers made an appearance in an R5 car which he was mostly test-ing ahead of next month’s Ypres Rally.

B


1. Loix – Gitsels Skoda Fabia R5 1.26.30,62. Princen – Kaspers Peugeot 208 T16 +50,83. Wright – Smeets Ford Fiesta R5 +1.18,54. Verschueren – Broekaert Skoda Fabia R5 +1.29,45. Snijers – Verbaeten Ford Fiesta R5 +2.01,96. Kenis – Buysmans Mini Cooper WRC +5.13,47. van Rompuy – Feys Citroën DS3 R5 +5.51,28. Becaert – Beernaert Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X +6.03,89. Jonkers – Beurskens Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X +6.11,310. Diels – Flas BMW M3 +7.58,5

2016 Belgian Rally Championship Drivers Standings

1. Freddy Loix Skoda Fabia R5 100 pts2. Kris Princen Peugeot 208 T16 64 pts3. Vincent Verschueren Skoda Fabia R5 57 pts4. Anthony Dovifat Citroen DS3 R1 40 pts5. Steven Dolfen Peugeot 208 VTi R2 26 pts6. Lucas Walbrecq Renault Twingo RS R1 26 pts7. Xavier Bouche Skoda Fabia R5 26 pt8. Kurt Braeckevelt BMW M3 25 pts9. Jelle Vermeire Ford Fiesta R2 24 pts10. Patrick Diels BMW M3 23 pts

Round 3

British Rally Championship

Pirelli Carlisle RallyWords: Steven van Veenendaal; Images: Andy Crayford - Crayfordmedia.com

Two rounds into the British Rally Championship and we’ve had two different winners. Elfyn Ev-ans looked to be the firm favour-ite for the title, but a no-score in Ireland put a dent in his title ambitions, can he bounce back at the Pirelli Carlisle Rally? Or will we see yet another winner in the highly competitive British series?

Ready to boogie?All drivers were. Their teams were. The cars were. But then, the boo-gie turned into bogey. The story

of the rally turned into a debate about the bogey-time regulations rather than about the crews out on the stages.

The bogey-time rules dictate that a stage cannot be run at more than 70 mph, any competitor who does, will be given a nominal time. At the Pirelli Carlisle though, on no less than three of the seven stages the bogey-time was beaten, with furi-ous reactions as a result. DMACK even threatened to withdraw El-fyn Evans, who beat time on one stage by 27 seconds.

Carlisle

BritishRally

Championship

B

British RC / Pirelli Carlisle Rally

52/60

Let’s get rallyingEvans, Ahlin, Bogie and Wilson all logged bogey-times on the opening stage, so it wasn’t un-til the second stage before the first leader emerged. It was El-fyn Evans who moved in front, but the remained small as the top five teams were locked into battle with just over 23 seconds separating Evans in first and Tom Cave in fifth.

The afternoon brought the driv-ers to the Roughside stage, which lived up to its name. Ev-ans suffered a puncture and dropped down the leaderboard, allowing Fredrik Ahlin to storm into the lead. Evans managed to climb back up to fifth before the end of the day, but any chances of victory were looking extreme-ly slim now.

When the rain begins to fallAll Ahlin was hoping for on Sun-day morning, was a nice and steady run without any incident. He was looking good for vic-tory but when he glanced up at the sky, things weren’t look-ing so good. Heavy rain made conditions extremely treacher-ous for the final three stages. The weather didn’t deter Ahlin though as he brought his car home in very mature fashion

to clinch the victory. It was the first win in the BRC by a Swede since the mid-90’s and the third by a different driver this season. Three winners out of three ral-lies just prove how competitive the BRC is this season.

Fight for the podiumBehind Ahlin things weren’t set-tled just yet. David Bogie pushed a bit too hard and put his Skoda into a ditch and out of the event. It promoted a delighted Matthew Wilson into second. Wilson, who hadn’t driven a competitive ral-ly for a year and a half showed that he hadn’t forgotten how to go about the forest tracks. He was right in the mix from the start and was rewarded with a fine second place.

Behind Wilson, Tom Cave was trying to fend off the charging Elfyn Evans. Putting all of his frustration about the bogey-times and puncture into his driv-ing, Evans was setting a blister-ing pace. On the very last stage of the rally Evans eventually managed to overtake Cave and round of a disappointing week-end with some good points for third. Ahlin played his joker though, doubling his points and nabbing the championship lead from Evans.

Matthew Wilson celebrated a fine return to the BRC with second.

Unhappy with the bogey-times, Elfyn Evans ran short of stage miles to complete his comeback.


1. Ahlin – Abrahamsen Ford Fiesta R5 2. Wilson – Loudon Ford Fiesta R5 +27,63. Evans – Parry Ford Fiesta R5 +30,44. Cave – Morgan Ford Fiesta R5 +53,45. McCormack – Moynihan Skoda Fabia S2000 +1.23,46. Greer – Riddick Citroen DS3 R5 +1.60,67. Henry – Moynihan Skoda Fabia R5 +3.17,08. Simpson – Edmondson Skoda Fabia R5 +3.20,79. Anderson – Whittock Ford Fiesta R5 +3.32,610. Vatanen – Renucci Ford Fiesta R5 +3.47,2

2016 British Rally Championship Drivers Standings

1. Fredrik Ahlin Ford Fiesta R5 65 pts2. Elfyn Evans Ford Fiesta R5 60 pts3. Josh Moffett Ford Fiesta R5 30 pts4. Tom Cave Ford Fiesta R5 26 pts5. Jonathan Greer Citroen DS3 R5 23 pts6. David Bogie Skoda Fabia R5 18 pts7. Matthew Wilson Ford Fiesta R5 15 pts8. Desi Henry Skoda Fabia R5 9 pts9. Jamie Anderson Ford Fiesta R5 8 pts10. Marty McCormack Skoda Fabia S2000 6 pt

B

ELE Rally Words: Steven van Veenendaal; Images: Steven van Veenendaal

Round 2Dutch Rally Championship

Dutch RC / ELE Rally

55/60

Rules are rules. But sometimes their re-sults can be quite bitter. It took until deep in the night before the actual winner was of-ficially announced. It brought about mixed reactions from the fans and a winner who stated: “This is absolutely not how I want to win”. But, rules are rules.

The entry list for the ELE Rally was pretty stacked with a couple of big names making their return to rallying. Bernhard ten Brinke and Mark van Eldik both made their come-back in competitive brand new Skoda Fabia’s R5. They would have to deal with the WRC ma-chinery of Dennis Kuipers (Ford Fiesta) and Erik van Loon (Subaru Impreza) though, not an easy task on the fast stages near Eindhoven.

Throw in to the mix the ever fast Jasper van den Heuvel and Piet van Hoof in their powerful Mitsubishis and you’ve got all the ingredients for a good fight for victory.

T.G.I.F.On Friday night, the action got underway and Erik van Loon drew first blood. It wouldn’t be long before Kuipers retaliated though, a fast-est time on stage three was followed by more scratch times to allow him to take the lead at the end of the opening leg. His trip back to service, would be the deciding factor though. The Fiesta ground to a halt with a mysterious electrical problem at the side of the highway. He was then pushed into service by Piet van Hoof, a violation of the rules.

Veldhoven

DutchRally

Championship

D

Dutch RC / ELE Rally

56/60

Decision?Saturday morning and all eyes are on Kuipers, can he get his car out of parc ferme to continue the rally? The car doesn’t start, but some man-power can get the car rolling as well and luckily the service area is located nearby. Kuipers get his car into the service area where the mechanics work their magic and within no-time the Fiesta is roaring again.The attention immediately switches to the organizers, will they allow Kui-pers to continue? It remains very silent and before the start of the first stage, there is no report that Kuipers will be penalized.

Keep pushingWithout any action from the organizers it seems that the show can go on as planned. A small mistake on Friday night put van Loon half a minute down on Kuipers and as the second day progresses, Kuipers shows his class and keeps expanding on that lead. Late in the afternoon however, the first reports are coming in that Kuipers might be excluded from the event. At eight o’clock in the evening, with just a couple of more stages to go, the organizers officially announce that Kuipers will indeed be exclud-

ed from the event due to forbidden assistance. Kuipers puts in a protest, but has to know deep down inside that the push that van Hoof gave him, was indeed illegal.

Close finaleKuipers’ exclusion puts van Loon in pole position for victory. He holds a one minute lead over his nearest rival, Bernhard ten Brink who is driving a Skoda Fabia R5. Going up against van Loon in his powerful Subaru Im-preza WRC shouldn’t really be possible, but as the night falls, ten Brinke decides to mount one final charge on the final two stages. On the St. Oedenrode stage ten Brinke slashes the lead down to 25 seconds with just the final loop around the industrial area to go. Van Loon’s time loss on the penultimate stage proved to be due to faulty headlights though, as he easily maintains his lead on the final stage, with fixed lights. Van Loon is thus able to bring home the victory, although it didn’t feel like a win to him: “For me, he (Dennis, ed.) is the winner. He drives very fast and makes no mistakes hwere we sometimes do. That makes him deserve the victory.”

After a couple of rally raid outings, Bernhard ten Brinke celebrated his return to the rally stages with a solid second place finish.

No wins yet for Jasper van den Heuvel, but two consecutive podium finishes put him in the lead of the championship.

D


1. van Loon-Scholtalbers Subaru Impreza WRC ‘08 1.40.49.02. ten Brinke-Thierie Skoda Fabia R5 +28,23. vd Heuvel-Bakker Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X +45,74. van Hoof-Jacobs Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IV +1.37,05. van Eldik-Verschuuren Skoda Fabia R5 +1.56,96. v Ballegooijen-Findhammer Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X +4.14,77. v Iersel-vd Einde Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X +6.33,98. Fernandes-Beck Peugeot 207 S2000 +7.30,09. vd Marel-vd Marel Opel Adam Slam R2 +7.59,510. Becx-Kuijpers Citroen DS3 R3T +8.03,8

2016 Dutch Rally Championship Drivers Standings

1. Jasper van den Heuvel 46 2. Bernhard ten Brinke 30 3. Antoine van Ballegooijen 28,75 4. Timo van der Marel 27 5. Dennis Kuipers 24 6. Martin van Iersel 23,5 7. Piet van Hoof 22,5 8. Mark van Eldik 17,5 9. Gerben Brouwer 17,25 10. Piet Hein van der Heijden 16,5

Rally-eMag / Erik’s Epic Encounters

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Erik’s epic encountersWhen travelling the world to snap the WRC, our photographer Erik van ‘t Land comes across many interesting scenes, sometimes concerning rallying, and sometimes just the finer things in life. Here are his finds from Rally de Portugal.

Winner of the ‘closest parking spot’ competition.

Guess how many?

Winners of the autograph collecting competition.

Highest spectator spot.

The pretty face of the voice,Molly, always in for a fun moment.

It seems to be slippery, both for carsand spectators

Perfect spot for taking photos..ehm?

OMG, Look at this, Mr Cool!

Find the cow!

Some spectators take special precautions to prevent sudden alcohol depletion.

Just a moment.. Looking for my...Saddle...

see you next time...

See you next time...

rally-emag 037 may 2016

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