Weekend rally news from overseas – September 19

The innovative Tour European Rally Championship, a start-up series run as a rival to the FIA European Rally Championship, runs four events this year, two of which are remaining.  

These are Skoda Rally Liezen in Austria and the former ERC Rallye International du Valais.  Many national champions have registered for the series, including Simone Tempestini, who last week retained his title of Romanian Rally Champion.

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Don Smith won the Africa Rally Championship.Kenyan airline magnate, Don Smith, is the 2016 FIA African Rally Champion after finishing 9th in the Pearl of Africa Uganda Rally in his Subaru Impreza.  

The event was won by Ugandan driver, Alwi Hassan, after the favourite, Muna Singh of Zambia retired.  Smith’s co-driver, Bob Kaugi, becomes the first indigenous African champion from Kenya to win a FIA title.

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Marcos Ligato (Chevrolet MR) won the Argentina championship Rally de Yerba Buena, based around the northern city of Tucuman ahead of Tomas Garcia (Fiat MR), and Ligato’s main rival Federico Villagra (Fiesta MR).   This was the seventh event in the 10 round series.

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Former Lancia and Ford WRC driver, Alex Fiorio, has been testing the development Abarth 124 Spider prototype intended for eventual FIA homologation as a R-GT car, which is to be used as the basis for a national one-make championship.  

The model is based on the Mazda RX5, styled in the concept of the Fiat Abarth 124 from the early ‘seventies and fitted with a turbo engine.

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France’s world championship rally nowadays is the Tour de Corse, run in the island of Corsica, a territory historically known for its banditry.  

It is fitting, therefore, that the organisers have concluded a three year sponsorship agreement with the Che Guevara energy drink company!

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Polish WRC2 driver, Hubert Ptaszek, has acquired a Fiesta R5 for the forthcoming Tour de Cprse and Wales Rally GB, instead of the Skoda Fabia R5.  

The original plan that he would alternate his WRC2 rallies with the Peugeot Slovakia team continues.

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Pedro Meireles won the Portugese championship Rali de Mortágua for the second successive time.   He finished Meireles 31.5 seconds ahead of championship leader, José Pedro Fontes.

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This weekend’s Hokkaido Rally based at Obihiro, the site of the erstwhile WRC event, is Japan’s round of the FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship.  

A well attended national championship supporting event sees veteran drivers Norihiko Katsuta, Fumio Nutahara and Toshi Arai as the three top seeded national drivers.
 
- Martin Holmes

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