Portuguese drivers dominate the entry for this weekend’s Madeira Rally, a round of the new promotional Tour European Rally series. Special entry will be the Porsche GT car of Le Mans winner Romain Dumas.
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Star exhibit at the recent Eifel classic car presentation was the original prototype Audi Group S, seen out of a museum for the first time, and allowed to be driven on the stages by Walter Rohrl.
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Rally Finland started badly for Craig Breen when he rolled his Citroen at the pre-rally test. He was deep in Irish denial, telling people the car seemed to have fallen off a trailer! His car was thrown off line by a rock in the road.
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Martynas Samsonas’ BMW M3X has proved too performant in Lithuanian rallying for rivals to be happy, and is reported to be considering acquiring a Maxi Rally instead, the first such car in the region.
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As the sport waits to hear the World Council’s proposals for the 2017 world championship calendar (on 28th September) comes news that Finland has concluded a contract with the WRC Promoter for the next two years.
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Former World Rally Car driver, Jarkko Nikara, won the national level Vetomies Rally at Neste Rally Finland in his old Mitsubishi Evo IX.
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When co-driver Maciej Szczepaniak was entered as a driver and Hubert Ptasek as a co-driver, there was confusion at what it meant. It was similar to when Max Rendina entered Finland Rally last year as a co-driver - but still drove the stages, ineligible to count the rally as one of the limited number of occasions that points could be scored.
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Citroen’s result in Finland resurrected memories of 50 years ago when Citroen controversially won the Monte Carlo Rally, because of the famous lights scandal. Their success had been at the expense of the British BMC team. Â
This year they controversially were allowed to run under different technical rules – but provided a British driver with victory!
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The fastest stage on Neste Rally Finland was stage 19, Pihlajakoski, on Saturday afternoon which Sebastien Ogier won at an average speed of 134.6km/h.
- Martin Holmes
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