Incredible end of Rally Azores for Skoda Motorsport

A great show all over the three days of the seventh event of this year’s Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC) that went so well for both Škoda Motorsport crews turned upside down in the last two special stages.

Hänninen, leading the race until that point, punctured his front right tyre in the last-but-one special and fell to fourth place as a consequence, which, on the other hand, catapulted his teammate Kopecký to the leading position. However, Kopecký’s car left the track just three kilometres before reaching the finish line and its driver had to withdraw from the race. As a result, Hänninen finished third (although he long seemed to be the obvious winner after starting so well) to reinforce his leadership in the overall IRC standings.

Says Michal Hrabánek, Head of Škoda Motorsport: “Today has shown again that it’s the end of the race that counts, and that you can never be certain any earlier. We had a bad luck in this race that long seemed to be going very well for us. Now we have to look at the future, though. The next rally event, with both our crews to appear again, is the Madeira Rally held on the first weekend of August. We will do our best to make up for today’s loss and win points in both driver and brand competitions, although we all know that it will be very difficult, especially because it’s going to be our first appearance there”.

Juho Hänninen: “I did not start this race the way I would have wanted to, but then I started gradually improving, and I believed I could win. Puncturing a tyre at the beginning of the last-but-one is a sort of bad luck that is part of car racing, but I am still bitterly disappointed about losing the lead this way. And then I could not believe my eyes when I saw Jan outside the track in the last special. The way to the overall title has got a bit complicated, but like we have been saying since the start – the season is long and we will carry on fighting”.

Jan Kopecký: “Mikkelsen who was ahead of us at that critical moment had some technical problem, and as we were approaching him, we could hardly see anything, because there was so much dust around his car. That complicated our situation and made me feel a little nervous. I made a stupid mistake and blew it all, but now I have to raise my head again and carry on. Apologies to the whole team for spoiling all the work they’ve done for this race. I believe that we will be more successful next time“.