Weekend rally news from overseas – October 24

Kalle Rovanpera (who had his 16th birthday earlier this month) won the final round of the Latvia Rally Championship (Latvia Rally) in his Skoda Fabia R5.  

16-year old Kalle Rovanpera won the Rally Latvia, claiming the national title as well.The only driver able to deprive him of the national title was Mitsubishi Mirage Proto driver Janis Vorobjovs who finished second.  

The weekend before Rally Latvia, Latvian driver Vorobjovs clinched the neighbouring Lithuanian rally title and also the previous weekend, Siim Plangi won the Saaremaa Rally in Estonia with an Evo X.

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Official Skoda Germany driver, Fabian Kreim, was declared national champion when he won the 3 Cities Rally (formerly known as Munich-Vienna-Budapest), after closest rival Christian Riedemann had gear linkage trouble on his Peugeot 208 T16.   

Citroen driver, Philipp Knof, won the two wheel drive title after his rival, Hermann Gassner junior, had a broken driveshaft on his Toyota 86 R3.

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Star of the Valais Rally was Andolfi, before he put his Hyundai i20 R5 off the road.Swiss rally champion Sebastien Carron won the Rally du Valais, this year a qualifying round of the Tour European Rally series, in a Citroen DS3 R5.  

Star of the show, however, was Italian Andolfi, whose Hyundai NG i20 R5 went off the road when only two seconds behind, after a series of five fastest times.

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Final round of the Spanish gravel championship, the Criterium de Malaga, saw victory for Alexander Villanueva, ahead of fellow Citroen DS3 R5 driver Josep Basols.

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Over three decades of popular promotional rallying activities, Citroen Racing has decided to suspend the Citroen Racing Trophy, a one-make series that had its roots in the early 80s with the Visa Trophy.  

The company will honour their promised winner’s six-event programme in a DS3 R3 next year.  

New competition friendly projects based on C3 are being planned for the future.

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A hydrogen cell Toyota Mirai won the inaugural e-Rallye Monte-Carlo last weekend, ahead of two electric Renault Zoes.  This event took over from Monte Carlo’s previous New Technologies and ZENN events.

- Martin Holmes     

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