MRF Tyres has achieved their best result yet in the New Zealand Rally Championship (NZRC), with young gun Lance Williams taking third outright in the Rally of Gisborne, round three of the series.
Driving a Subaru Impreza WRX, Williams and co-driver Raymond “Crunch” Bennett performed brilliantly in the cold and damp conditions, making best use of their soft and medium compound MRF Tyres.
“This was our first official outing in NZRC this year and we are very happy to see that the tyres performed extremely well,” MRF Competition Tyres (Australia / NZ) and Mentor Tyres CEO, Vivek Ponnusamy, said.
“The conditions were challenging with temperature of less than five degrees and damp roads. Lance used both soft and medium compound. The strategy worked perfectly.”
Bennett says that he and Williams were pleasantly surprised by the performance of the MRF Tyres, and expect that their stage times will reduce significantly in the future, now that they know what the Indian-made tyres are capable of.
"We started the event just a little bit nervous as we didn't really know what to expect and we did not have any testing on the new tyres, but by the time we started the second stage, we had confidence to brake later into the corners," Bennett explained.
"The new ZG2 tyres have performed extremely well for New Zealand conditions. The Kevlar sidewalls didn't let us down and the tyres also seem to accentuate the steering precision as there doesn't seem to be any tyre 'Walk'.
“So when we get to Coromandel Rally, the next round of the championship, we will be looking to improve by half a second a kilometre with some ideas we are shortly going to test.
“That’s half a second/km in tyre performance, and we know that once the tyres perform better, the driver confidence grows at the same rate. There are exciting times ahead!”
Ponnusamy gave full credit goes to Williams and Bennett for their performance and professional approach.
“Lance has great potential and is a driver to look forward to in the future. Our focus now is testing the suitable tyres for next year’s NZRC,” Ponnusamy said.
“The NZRC looks good for MRF Tyres and Mentor Tyres, and we will be supporting the championship in 2017 and beyond.”
Photo: Jason Byrne
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