Kangur’s recovery gives Honda IRC 2WD Cup lead

Martin Kangur’s heroic recovery drive on Barum Czech Rally Zlin last week has been credited for helping Honda to move into the lead of the IRC 2WD Cup standings.

The Estonian slipped back to 19th position after a driveshaft broke on stage four but fought back to claim sixth place in the two-wheel-drive division. The points he and fellow Civic driver Ondrej
Blatak scored have handed Honda a nine-point advantage over Peugeot in the IRC 2WD Cup manufacturers’ standings.

Pierernesto Pagani, an engineer from JAS Motorsport who supervises the Honda Racing Customer Support operation, said: “The fact that Martin was the fastest driver in 2WD five times, that he could climb back to sixth place overall in the 2WD category and that he secured Honda valuable points, says a lot about his talents and the potential of the Honda Civic Type R. Martin drove a perfect [rally]. It is really unfortunate that he had to suffer from this extremely rare shaft failure, for which he is absolutely not to blame.”

Kangur said: “The car felt superb until the driveshaft broke. We were convinced that we had the speed and that we could challenge for a podium finish. But with that incident we lost two minutes so all
we could do was fight back.”