Hi, friends!
After Dani Sordo's heroics from yesterday when he led the rally with Hyundai i20 Rally2 car and with MRF Tytes rubber on his car, it was obvious after he revealed that he doesn't have anymore new tires, that won't be able to fight for the victory.
Andreas Mikkelsen took it steady and clever, waited for rally to close to the end, push the gas pedal and won the rally.
Portuguese hero Ricardo Moura went off close to the rally end and lost his 3rd place by 3.2s in the end. Efren Llarena drove his probably the best rally of his career and finished 3rd overall on the rally which is everything but not easy.
Wet gravel is always hard surface to drive on and the only way is to have the soft tires which you have limited number for every event. Hard compound gravel tire is good for long and rough special stages but not tat good for wet gravel. I guess that Sordo had to use all the new tires without tires strategy just to keep with Mikkelsen in the fight for the lead.
Alexey Lukyanuk had another terrible rally and it is all about the confidence after a few bad off road excursions on testings and on the rallies. He has approach 'winning or retirement' and that sometimes helps and sometimes he is out of the rally even before the event has started. Now he has two rallies in the row without the points and that's why he is only 4th in the championship standings.
I guess that this years championship can be called finished now when Andreas Mikkelsen has 36 point lead over Spaniard Efren Llarena. Sensation for me is that Polish Miko Marczyk is 3rd in the championship at the moment. That is only because of the Lukyanuk's mistakes. Nothing else.
Italian Umberto Scandola drove cool headed with his Hyundai i20 Rally2 and finished 6th overall.
It is interesting that the next event of the European Rally Championship is again in Portugal and the event is called Rally di Fafe. Great stuff.
Credit for photos and videos to ERC and Youtube
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