By Posted on Jan 20, 2012
PROTON currently leads the 2012 FIA Super World Rally Championship (S-WRC) category and moved up one spot to ninth overall on the second day of the Monte Carlo Rally.
In what was yet another drama-filled second day of
rallying, the Monte Carlo Rally continued to inflict heavy
casualties and knocked out yet another front runner, this
time Frenchman Sebastien Ogier who was running sixth
overall and leading the S-WRC class in the Skoda Fabia
S2000. Ogier was 5km shy of the finish when his Skoda was
involved in a high-speed crash which put him into
retirement.
With Ogier's retirement, Andersson inherits the lead in the
S-WRC class with Germany's Kevin Abbring in the Skoda Fabia
S2000 in second place and 10th overall, some 23 seconds
behind. In third place and 15th overall is Craig Breen in
the Ford Fiesta S2000 while fourth and 20th overall is
Bryan Bouffier in the Peugeot 207 S2000.
Current world champion Sebastien Loeb extended his overall
lead in Monte Carlo in dominant form, claiming victory in
five of the day's six special stages. The Frenchman
overcame the icy conditions to currently hold a one minute
37 second lead ahead of Spaniard Dani Sordo in the Mini
while in third place is Ford's Petter Solberg a further
three seconds adrift.
"The Monte Carlo Rally is all about pacing yourself to the
finish. There is a very fine line between driving at your
limit and being careful enough not to be caught out by the
tricky and changing conditions of the terrain. We've had a
good run so far, and with two more days of rallying
remaining we are going to be extra cautious as the changing
conditions on the special stages make it extremely
difficult and tricky," said Andersson.
"Our goal here is to get the Satria Neo S2000 to a strong
overall finish and if all goes well, a podium finish in the
S-WRC category on our debut." Only 59 cars of the 89-strong
entries remain at the end of the second day of the Monte
Carlo Rally which has already claimed some 30 retirements.
The entries include 16 WRC cars and 11 S2000 cars.
"The performance of the Satria Neo S2000 and the results
thus far has been nothing short of a phenomenal start to
the season for us at PROTON," said Datuk Abdul Razak
Dawood, the Head of PROTON Motorsports. "
Positions after SS10:
Pos Driver Team/Car Time/Gap
1. Sebastien Loeb Citroen 2h45m56s
2. Dani Sordo Mini + 1m37s
3. Petter Solberg Ford + 1m40s
4. Mikko Hirvonen Citroen + 3m40s
5. Evgeny Novikov M-Sport Ford + 3m51s
6. Francois Delecour M-Sport Ford + 5m19.s
7. Pierre Campana Mini + 6m49s
8. Ott Tanak M-Sport Ford + 7m00s
9. P-G Andersson PROTON + 10m08s
10. Kevin Abbring Skoda +10m31s
| distribué par | Ce noodl a été diffusé par PROTON Holdings Berhad et initialement mise en ligne sur le site http://www.proton.com. La version originale est disponible ici. Ce noodl a été distribué par noodls dans son format d'origine et sans modification sur 2012-01-20 10:28:02 AM et restera accessible depuis ce lien permanent. Cette annonce est protégée par les règles du droit d'auteur et toute autre loi applicable, et son propriétaire est seul responsable de sa véracité et de son originalité. |
