IRC aces star at Race of Champions event

Intercontinental Rally Challenge heroes Juho Hänninen and Jan Kopecký were among the stars of the motorsport world competing at the Race of Champions event in Germany last weekend.

Former IRC champion Hänninen and Kopecký, runner-up in the IRC for the past three seasons, were competing against legendary names such as seven-time Formula One world champion Michael Schumacher and multiple Le Mans 24 Hours winner Tom Kristensen.

Hänninen partnered Kristensen at Team Nordic for the Nations Cup event on Saturday before taking part in the Race of Champions proper on Sunday. Team Nordic finished second overall to Team Germany’s Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel, F1 champion for the past two seasons.

Kopecký, meanwhile, joined forces with Russian Formula One star Vitaly Petrov in Team Slavic’s Nations Cup entry. Despite two wins for Petrov, the team failed to progress beyond the opening round.

“I had a really nice race against Sébastien Ogier in the ŠKODA [Fabia Super 2000],” said Kopecký. “I fell asleep at the start and lost a bit on the first lap, but didn’t make any mistakes at all on the second lap and I beat him by a 10th of a second. Otherwise it was difficult for me. In the other cars I didn’t have so much confidence because the practice was only two laps. I raced against Mattias Ekström in an Audi so I knew it would be hard to beat him unless he made a mistake. But I’m happy to have been here because all the other drivers are really amazing – and always happy to talk about whatever you want.”