JWRC: Burkart in the clear

Aaron Burkart has completed day two of Rally of Turkey with a lead of than four minutes in the Junior World Rally Championship section of the event.

The German driver has performed faultlessly throughout the day at the wheel of his Suzuki Swift Super 1600 to hold an advantage of more than four minutes over Alessandro Broccoli, in a Renault Clio R3.

Burkart, starting his fifth and final season in the J-WRC, began the day 7.5 seconds clear of Thierry Neuville. But when Neuville stopped on the first stage with a broken differential and Kevin Abbring lost time with a puncture and an electrical fault, Burkart was left in the clear.

He set the fastest time on seven of the eight stages and will start Sunday’s final six stages with a lead of 4m05.4s. “I’ve just been trying to avoid the punctures and I hope I can keep the same pace tomorrow without making any mistakes,” said Burkart. “I just hope it’s not raining tomorrow because it could lead to muddy conditions and that won’t be easy in a two-wheel drive car.”

Broccoli lost time when his Clio began to take in dust during the morning stages, which the San Marino driver said had made breathing difficult. But he said he was “very happy” to be second in class at the overnight halt. “I’m very happy because the conditions were very, very hard today,” said Broccoli.

Kevin Abbring has lost more than 11 minutes during a frustrating second day of Rally of Turkey. Having led after three stages on Friday, the Dutchman is now 7m14.3s behind Broccoli in third following two punctures and a fuel pump connecting wire failure, which caused his Clio’s engine to cut out on two occasions.

“There’s no real pressure on me now because there’s nothing I can do now apart from trying to reach the finish,” said Abbring. “It’s been a real bad day, no fun at all.”

Todor Slavov is fourth in his Clio after restarting on Saturday morning following his oil pressure woes on Friday’s final stage. “We’ve been careful not to have any punctures today so we haven’t been pushing too much,” said the Bulgarian. “We had a problem with the exhaust system on the last stage and also no starter motor working but we are okay.”

Harry Hunt completed Saturday’s morning loop with bent steering after nudging a bank on the second stage of the day in his R2-specification Ford Fiesta. He lost more time when he got stuck following a spin on the penultimate stage and was only able to regain the road after getting a push from a group of spectators. His only other scare occurred on the day’s final stage when his car’s dashboard became detached from its mountings.

Karl Kruuda broke a rear wheel midway through stage 13 and lost time stopping to make the change. A mechanical problem forced him to retire.

Neuville has confirmed that a lack of replacement differential means he won’t be able to restart on Sunday.