Kopecky takes closest ever IRC victory

SKODA Motorsport’s Jan Kopecky won the 45. Canon Mecsek Rallye by the smallest margin in the history of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge after a dramatic final day of action. In an event marked by close battles throughout the field, Team Peugeot Belgium-Luxembourg’s Thierry Neuville won the final stage but lost out to the Czech driver overall by just 0.8s.

Right up until the penultimate stage, this rally looked like it belonged to SKODA UK’s Andreas Mikkelsen. The overnight leader started the day strongly, built an advantage with a commanding early stage win. "On the first stage this morning I was sleeping," Kopecky said, then backed off too much on the first stage of the afternoon. With the pressure back on, 6.2km into SS13 Mikkelsen slid wide on gravel in a fast right-hand corner and the back of his car hit a tree. He was able to keep the heavily damaged Fabia S2000 moving until the next junction, where he was able to park it safely.

“We had the perfect weekend up until stage thirteen," he said. "We had led from the start, I was driving smart, Ola [Floene] was doing an amazing job and the car was faultless. I’m so disappointed about what happened.

“We are getting so close to winning a rally now, it’s just a shame we couldn’t fulfil it here."

The battle for the lead between the SKODA team-mates wasn’t the only story of the day. Peugeot’s Thierry Neuville was third overnight and began the day within striking distance of the leader. There could be no question of team orders up front as Neuville racked up a succession of stage wins, and after Mikkelsen’s retirement Neuville ended the penultimate stage 8.1s behind new leader Kopecky.

To close the gap over the remaining 17.7km would be a tall order, and so it proved. Neuville won the final stage convincingly but fell just short of overall victory, by 0.8s. Could they have snatched victory in the final stage? Neuville and co-driver Nicolas Gilsoul will be pondering that between now and the next round.

"Unfortunately I absolutely wanted to modify a pace note in a very fast section, and I didn’t have time to tell him the pace note for afterwards,” said Gilsoul. “The corner tightened so we had a big moment. But Thierry has very good car control and we had a bit of luck."

Freddy Loix brought his BFO-SKODA home third. Having shown speed on the opening day, he couldn’t hit the same heights on the second.

"It’s a combination of factors," he said. "The feeling of the car is better, I have a good feeling but I’m losing a few seconds here and there. I can see where I’m losing but I can’t react for the stage after, so it’s always the same silly mistakes.

"It’s not a question of gravel on the road. If I feel well, like in the Barum Rally, gravel is no problem. It’s more about being on the big attack and about confidence."

Confidence had been a problem for Peugeot France’s Bryan Bouffier on the opening day as he struggled with set-up issues and lack of trust in the veracity of his pace notes. Today he was within the top five on every stage, but the overall gap to the leaders was too great for the Rallye Monte-Carlo winner to overcome.

"The car worked very well today," he said. "I had a better feeling and we took some points."

Fifth fell to Hermann Gassner Jr in only his second asphalt rally in the Red Bull SKODA. Gassner improved continuously throughout the event, beginning just outside the top 10 and ultimately passing more experienced entrants on merit. By Sunday morning he was posting stage times well within the top 10, and was fourth quickest over the last two stages.

It was only on the penultimate stage that Gassner unseated local IRC Production Cup entrant Gyorgy Aschenbrenner, who used his local knowledge to remarkable effect. Regularly setting top 10 stage times aboard his Ralliart Lancer Evolution IX, Aschenbrenner delighted the local fans and drew one of the biggest crowds in the service park.

Brake problems on the first day consigned Toni Gardemeister to the lower portion of the top 10, and his counter-attack this morning was hindered by a misfire on SS1. "It felt like bad turbo lag," he said. "It would pause, there was nothing, then the power would come in. I stopped after the stage and went under the bonnet, played with some connections, but we had to look at it in the service park."

In the afternoon, though, the TGS Worldwide SKODA came on song and Gardemeister had no complaints. "The car is working brilliantly," he said, "and we’ve learned a lot about this new rally."

Hungarian entrant Robert Butor finished eighth after a strong run, beating several IRC regulars in his Peugeot 207 S2000: "We are very happy. For us the Hungarian championship was the most important and in this we are second, so it’s good."

Bruno Magalhaes was ninth in the Peugeot Sport Portugal 207 S2000, having solved the set-up and gear ratio issues that hindered him on the first day. "This rally was very tough," he said. "It was hard to run against local drivers – they were fast."

Beppo Harrach rounded out the top 10 in a Ralliart Lancer Evolution IX, though Karl Kruuda - who suffered a puncture in SS12 - was just 2.1s behind after the final stage.
"This result is much more than we expected before the rally," said Harrach. "To be able to fight with all the Super 2000 cars ahead of us - amazing!"

IRC Production Cup

Gyorgy Aschenbrenner and Piko Zsuzsa continued their dominance in their Ralliart Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX, remaining in the top 10 throughout the day. Aschenbrenner had some handling issues in the morning’s final stage but the timing was opportune, since a service halt followed immediately. Second placed Beppo Harrach also finished inside the top 10, 24.5s ahead of David Botka, both in Lancer Evolution IXs. IRC regular Toshi Arai, driving the Subaru Impreza R4 in its third event, found it hard to match the pace of the Hungarian drivers but set-up improvements overnight enabled him to finish seventh in class.

IRC 2WD Cup

Menyhert Kroszer, driving a Citroen DS3 R3T, held an overnight lead of 15.0s over IRC 2WD Cup regular Stefano Albertini’s Renault Clio R3, but Albertini attacked from the very first stage and by the lunchtime service had moved into the lead. The battle continued throughout the afternoon and Albertini won by just 1.9s. Olle Sasa was 2m22.6s behind in his Suzuki Swift S1600. Jean-Michel Raoux continues to top the IRC 2WD Cup standings after finishing seventh. Honda moved clear in the makes’ classification with two cars in the top six.

Jan Kopecky (CZE), SKODA Fabia S2000, first overall: “It was very difficult racing, a very quick rally. Finally we are in first place – okay, we were lucky, but we didn’t make any mistakes, we stayed on the road, we didn’t spin or go off, and the car was working perfectly. The result was first place.”

Thierry Neuville (BEL), Peugeot 207 S2000, second overall: “We changed the set-up and the car felt much better, and I felt more confident. I continued to push and push and we felt really good. We had just a little moment on the last stage today, Nicolas was maybe a little too late with the pace note, but we managed it and we could continue. Maybe we lost the rally there but yesterday I was not driving so good on a few stages, so it’s hard to say. Today it was like we switched off and went flat out.”

Freddy Loix (BEL), SKODA Fabia S2000, third overall: “It was certainly not my most easy rally because I could never do the speed of the first three cars. I was always doing the third or fourth time, so today when I came in for the first service I had a small talk with my engineer, he was pushing me and I said, ‘Look, I want to finish the rally like this because at the moment I can’t go quicker, and maybe with some luck by the end of the day I will be on the podium.’”