Italian veteran driver Giandomenico Basso has pulled further ahead in the TER rally series after finishing second on the Madeira Rally, held on the Atlantic Ocean island.
Madeira Rally winner Alexandre Camacho winner in his Peugeot.
The lead changed hands six times during the two day event with three drivers, Alexandre Camacho (Peugeot), Basso (Ford) and Miguel Nunes (Hyundai) each taking turns to lead.
But after Nunes retired having lost a wheel, Basso eased his pressure to consolidate his chance for second place points.
Gil Freitas retired in the wet Madeira conditions.Camacho and third placed Joao Silva (Citroen) are both island residents, best metropolitan Portuguese driver was Miguel Campos (Skoda) and the second foreigner was Simone Tempestini (Citroen).
Hyundai trainee driver Chewon Lim also lost a wheel, while Citroen WRC driver Stephane Lefebvre had a torrid time with his DS3 R5, twice retiring.
Basso’s points score is now 77, ahead of the absent Bernd Casier with 49 and Camacho now with 28. Three events remain to run – in Austria Switzerland and Italy.
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Close fight on the first day of the Argentino championship Neuquen based Vuelta de la Manzana (“Lap of the Apple Tree”) saw Marcos Ligato leading Miguel Baldoni by two seconds.
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Fabian Kreim won the German championship Rallye Thuringen and went into the lead of the DRM series, after his nearest rival, Rene Mandel, went off the road. Emil Bergkvist finished third, with his new co-driver Ola Floene.
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Postscripts from Rzeszow …
ERC championship points show Kajetanowicz is leading with 108 points gained through five events, ahead of Bruno Magalhaes with 95 from four. Rules say the best six results count. Three events remain to run.
Both rear-drive Toyota GT86 CS-R3 crashed.
This was the fifth round of this year’s ERC and a different driver has won each time.
Mads Ostberg’s return to the ERC ended in despair after his Fiesta R5 suffered a power steering problem. This itself was quickly resolved, only for other issues to happen, but the incident raised serious safely concerns, especially how quickly the steering can appear to fail. The car was withdrawn.
The Adapta team has not announced whether their R5 entry in the WRC Rallye Deutschland will be affected.
Bryan Bouffier’s occasional French co-driver, Gilbert Dini, has finished third, second and now first with Bryan in successive events.
- Martin Holmes
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