Printsport team driver Emil Lindholm, son of five times Finnish national champion, Sebastian Lindhom, and nephew of twice world champion Marcus Gronholm, scored the first outright win of his career when he won the Neste Rally practice event, the AutoGlym Rally.
He was the 2017 Neste Rally “Future Star”. He finished nearly a half minute in front of Jarkko Nikara, while foreign drivers (Ole Christian Veiby, Takamoto Katsuta and Niroki Arai) were next.
JWRC contenders Jean-Bapiste Franceschi and Dennis Radstrom finished second and fourth in their class.
Rally Estonia, the other Nest Rally practice event, finishes on Sunday afternoon.
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Pikes Peak record holder and reigning FIA R-GT champion, Romain Dumas, has announced his latest project. He is developing a new model for use in the R-GT series.
“We have started preparing the Porsche Cayman GTA, with three days of testing on the local Pôle Mécanique Alès-Cévennes test track. Further tests are planned before Rallye Deutschland in August, where it will run as a zero car,” he said.
It has been reported in Germany that the car is based on the Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport (385 hp), the roll cage had to be changed, the suspension and trailing arms are reinforced and a sump guard was installed. There will only be an asphalt version of the car.
This model has been selected as it complies with the FIA’s power-weight. The aim is to beat R5 cars under ideal conditions.
Whereas the FIA originally visualised the formula would be ideal for spectacular cars such as Porsches and Aston Martins, this year the only time these cars have been entered in the first three rounds has been in Corsica, and the only scorers have been drivers of Abarth 124s.
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53-year old 10 times Italian national champion, Paolo Andreucci, and his 46-year old co-driver, Anna Andreussi (pictured above), were both seriously hurt when they were testing their Peugeot 208 T16 near Baiardo in the hills behind Sanremo.
They were preparing for the forthcoming ERC Rally Roma Capitale.
Details of the crash are still sketchy beyond that the car impacted head-on into a small wall on Paolo's side and shot off the road.
Full medical details have not yet been released.
This comes soon after news that the 60-year old, 14 times Austrian national champion, Raimund Baumschlager, has only recently restarted rally activities after a bad back injury.
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<image ERC championship PR - picture from 2017 event>
Next weekend’s all asphalt Rally di Roma Capitale will be the third out of five rounds of the FIA R-GT Cup, and the fifth out of eight rounds of the 2018 European Rally Championship – and third round for the ERC Junior drivers.
Starting from Rome on Friday evening it finishes on Sunday evening. It will also run as an Italian championship rally, but foreign drivers cannot take points away from the Italian crews.
Apart from the promotional stages run first and then last, all the stages will be run south-east of Rome. Leg 1 is close to Cassino and leg 2 around Subiaco.
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