Ketomaa fastest in Latvia ERC qualifying

Jari Ketomaa has gone fastest on the Qualifying Stage for Rally Liepāja-Ventspils, round two of the FIA European Rally Championship.

At the wheel of a Ford Fiesta RRC, the Flying Finn lived up to his moniker by setting a time of 2m44.8s through the ice-coated 5.89-kilometre test near the town of Prikule, located 40 kilometres from the city of Liepāja.

Ketomaa’s performance means he will have first choice of the starting positions for leg one, which gets underway with the Rallyofchampions.com stage at 17:10hrs local time today.

“Everything was fine, now we must choose our starting place but I think we will go first,” said Ketomaa’s co-driver Kaj Lindström.

Russian Alexey Lukyanuk was second fastest, 0.8s down on Ketomaa, in his Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X, which is eligible for the ERC Production Car Cup. He will be the next driver to select his starting position after Ketomaa with Vasily Gryazin the top Latvian driver in third place, 0.9s adrift of Lukyanuk in a time of 2m46.5s.

Siim Plangi, from Estonia, was fourth fastest in an R4-specifcation Lancer with top Lithuanian Vytautas Švedas next up. Craig Breen, one of the favourites for victory in Latvia in his Saintéloc Peugeot Rally Academy 207 Super 2000, completed the top six followed by Raimonds Kisiels (MINI John Cooper Works RRC) and rallying legend François Delecour.

Breen, who recorded a time of 2m49.3s, was satisfied with his performance despite admitting that he could have gone faster. “I’m trying to save my [supply of] tyres for the rally so it was worth the sacrifice,” said the Irishman. “The tyres I used this morning had already done 100 kilometres before free practice so I’m not too worried. It’s difficult to say where we’re going to choose to go on the road.”

Czech drivers Jan Černý (ŠKODA Fabia Super 2000) and Jaroslav Orsák completed the top 10 in ninth and 10th places respectively.

The top 12 priority drivers who took part in qualifying will select their starting positions at 13:00hrs local time.

Qualifying Stage results
1 Ketomaa/Lindström (Ford Fiesta RRC)
 2m44.8s
2 Lukyanuk/Arnautov (Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X) 2m45.6s
3 Gryazin/Chumak (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX R4) 2m46.5s
4 Plangi/Sarapuu (Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X R4) 2m46.8s
5 Švedas/Sakalauskas (Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X) 2m48.0s
6 Breen/Moynihan (Peugeot 207 S2000) 2m49.3s
7 Kisiels/Ronis (MINI John Cooper Works RRC) 2m50.1s
8 Delecour/Savignoni (Peugeot 207 S2000) 2m51.3s
9 Černy/Kohout (ŠKODA Fabia S2000) 2m51.9s
10 Orsák/Šmeidler (Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX) 2m56.7s
11 Tlusťák/Vyoral (ŠKODA Fabia S2000) 2m57.7s
12 Puskádi/Gódor (ŠKODA Fabia S2000) 2m59.3s