Weekend rally news from overseas – July 5

This weekend sees the Nicky Grist Stages in Wales, the same event as the Quinton Stages on which Andreas Mikkelsen scored his remarkable victory on his first ever rally 10 years ago.  

This year’s two-day rally will see the Saturday stages in the forest roads and the Sunday stages on Epynt military stages.   It is the fifth round of the British Rally Championship.

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Hayden Paddon is to compete on the Autoglym Rally (July 16) at Kangasala, location of the Mobilia motor museum near Tampere, as part of his pre-Neste Rally Finland test.  

Hard based stages in this region have been traditional 1000 Lakes stages in the past.  This will be a suitable NRF test event, and Teemu Suninen and Ole Christian Veiby are both expected to compete.

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Paddon’s heritage lives on.   David Holder won the first New Zealand Rally Championship by securing victory in the one-day Rally Gisborne.  He drove the same Mitsubishi Evo 8 that Paddon used to win the rookie and junior national rally titles in 2006.

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Fermanagh driver Garry Jennings scored a start to finish win on last Saturday’s Orchard Motorsport Lurgan Park Rally. Co-driven by Michael Moran in his Subaru Impreza WRC, this was Jennings’ fourth consecutive victory on the event.

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Official Skoda driver Jan Kopecky (Fabia R5) won the national Czech championship Bohemia Rally, based at Skoda’s home town of Mlada Boleslav, beating Vaclav Pech’s Porsche by a minute.

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The confusion caused when Dani Sordo demolished a straw bale at a chicane on Sunday is sure to lead to debate about ultra-high speed stages and the importance of slowing cars down, particularly with the prospect of the forthcoming higher performance 2017 formula rules.

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Welshman Osian Pryce is leading the Drive DMack Fiesta Trophy after two rounds, six points ahead of Jon Armstrong, some way ahead of third placed Max Vatanen.
 
- Martin Holmes     

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