David Salanon won the French championship Antibes Rally in a Fiesta WRC, beating Lebanese driver Roger Feghali (Citroen DS3 WRC) by 12.7 seconds.
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Hayden Paddon's car burnt to the ground after his accident in Portugal.Outright winner of the fast German Sachsen Rallye was Rainer Noller’s Porsche 996 GT3 who beat Fabian Kreim’s Skoda Fabia R5 by 4.2 seconds. Hermann Gassner’s Toyota GT86 CS-R3 was second in the two wheel drive category, two minutes behind Philipp Knof’s Citroën DS3 R3T Max, but ahead of Chris Ingram’s Opel Adam R2.
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One more win in Belgium for Freddy Loix (Fabia R5), this time at the Sezoens Rally. He finished 50 seconds in front of Kris Princen’s Peugeot 208 T16, while Irish driver Stephen Wright’s Fiesta R5 was third.
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Overall winner of the joint Latvian and Lithuanian Rally Championship 50th anniversary Rally Talsi was the special four wheel drive BMW M3X of the Lithuanian Martin Samson, despite incurring a one minute penalty. Second was Kalle Rovanpera’s Skoda Fabia S2000.
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Marcos Ligato won the Argentine championship La Rioja Rally in his Chevrolet Agile MR, pulling six points ahead in the series from Federico Villagra (Fiesta MR).
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Officially confirmed is the new title for the Polish round of the world championship (round 7), now called “PZM Rajd Polski” (PZM – Polish Motor Union - is the Polish federation), confirming the end of the association with the national Lotos group.
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Hayden Paddon tirelessly answered fan questions after the Portugal Rally. He said that he wanted to go down the road to warn the oncoming Tanak “but the police would not allow us to. They said there were marshals down the road to do that, but which there weren’t. Every car was having a moment through the corner, we could not understand why the stage was not stopped (sooner)”.
He said he was extremely worried when he saw Tanak’s car near the fire. All the crew could salvage were the helmets, which he and John Kennard were wearing. The fire came so quickly there was no chance to press the yellow flag warning device.
Lost were their pacenotes for the three different Friday stages. The information can only be retrieved from the incar footage from the recce.
- Martin Holmes