SS7: Seven stage wins for IRC champion Mikkelsen

Intercontinental Rally Challenge champion Andreas Mikkelsen has completed day one of the Sibiu Rally with his seventh fastest stage time at the wheel of his ŠKODA UK Motorsport Fabia Super 2000.

Mikkelsen, who took 10m49.9s to complete the all-gravel night stage, said: “It was a fantastic stage, so many people near the finish. It was a tricky stage but we were clean and tidy with no big push. When there are so many people on the stage you can even smell the barbeque fire in the car it’s that special.”

Despite organisers starting all crews in four-minute intervals due to the visibility problems caused by hanging dust clouds, which are magnified at night, Sepp Wiegand was 40.5s slower than Mikkelsen in his ŠKODA Auto Deutschland Fabia. “It was better than the stages before but it’s not gone the dust and it’s really difficult to see with the lights on,” said Wiegand. “I had one or two little moments but no big things.”

Patrik Flodin reported switching off the lights on his Petter Solberg Engineering M-Sport Ford Fiesta S2000 in his efforts to find his way in the dust, which the Swede said was particularly bad nearing the finish. A loss of pacenotes for the final 1.5 kilometres caused further delay although he was 2.1s quicker than Wiegand.

François Delecour, who was second fastest to close to within 24.7s of Wiegand in the overall classification, said: “It was exactly like driving in fog except for Mikkelsen. You can’t go flat out, you have to slow down because you don’t see any more.”

Marco Tempestini reported his privateer Fabia felt nervous, possibly the result of some incorrect damper settings.