Alister McRae and co-driver Bill Hayes fended off a series of misfortunes on the third and final day of the Rally of Queensland to salvage a fourth place finish for the factory Proton team. McRae was leading the pack after Leg 1, but mechanical problems means that the Scot is still waiting for his first APRC win.
Starting the day with an eight second advantage over Mitsubishi’s Gaurav Gill, earned after winning three stages on Leg 1, McRae lost the lead when his Satria Neo S2000’s engine began misfiring after a water crossing in one of the day’s seven special stages.
The fightback was dealt a serious blow when he was forced to slow down as a result of a broken drive shaft over 50 km of the last three SS of the rally. No service interval, so they had to nurse the car home.
Despite this disaster, McRae managed to hang on to fourth ahead of a charging Rifat Sungkar, the Indonesian competing in a Mitsubishi Evo 10.
McRae’s teammate Chris Atkinson was hoping for a successful home rally, but it was not to be. After setting a blistering pace to lead the first two opening super special stages on Friday night and winning the first stage on Saturday morning, his run came to an abrupt end on the next stage due to an electrical failure. Rejoining the final day of the rally, the Aussie endured a second electrical failure which truly ended his rally.
This second round of the Asia Pacific Rally Championship was won by British driver Mark Higgins, who finished 16 seconds ahead of Gaurav Gill. Japanese driver Katsuhiko Taguchi was third. Interestingly, Higgins is a three-time British Rally Champion and a stunt driver in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace. With Welsh co-driver Ieuan Thomas, this was his first APRC rally.
The Cusco tuned Neos did better in the 2WD category. Karamjit Singh led a category 1-2 ahead of fellow Neo driver Akira Bamba. They finished 9th and 11th overall in the rally.
Looking to sell your car? Sell it with Carro.
yay…
good performance by the teams…
hard luck boys..make it better next time..congrats karamjit making podium comeback!
can we all chip in money and organize event where cusco’s karam race with proton’s mcrae? if karam wins, then we have the rights to curse and bash every single malaysian corporations in every single paultan’s post for not sponsoring karam.
hahahahaha
Karam and McRae are competing in different category. Again, McRae is still way ahead of Karam.
Yup, but with handicapped if you forgotten mcrae is in a 4wd while karam is in a 2wd.
If that’s the case, McRae’s got a handicap as well, since his car got problems
With such backing, how come only managed to get 4th while Mr. Singh got 1st ?? Is it because the category that Mc Rae is racing is tougher with more competition than Singh category ?? someone please enlighten us ??
look at overall position will you..
Of coz the S2000 category is tougher than the 2WD. The speed different of the car also is a huge gap, but in rally speed is not the major concern. Still, even Karam do well but he should move into higher category to prove that he is the best Malaysian rally driver.
karam 1st in 2wd category….overall 9th……mcrae 4th overall….
The flying Sikh is da best….why wasting money for foreigner driver….PROTON still lack of patriotism
Some shit brains must be running Proton.
To solve their shitty powerwindow problem,their give a lifetime warranty which means unlimited replacement at no cost .
To show to the public their shiity cars are better quality,they hire radio DJs to talk about it. They think the more the cars is talk about the more the public will believe the lies.
To help sell their shitty cars they request the government to make sure all the other cars sell higher than their price.
To impress the public that Proton business is improving,their open a useless logistic hub when there is no demand for the shitty cars globally.
To show Proton shitty Satria Neo Rally car is durable they hire whiteman to drive it AND loss to a Karam they should have sponsored.
ALL THIS SHOWS PROTON IS OUT OF TOUCH WITH THE PUBLIC.
People are talking about the rally while u are still mentioning power window.
Who is ‘OUT OF TOUCH’ really?
[… McRae lost the lead when his Satria Neo S2000’s engine began misfiring after a water crossing in one of the day’s seven special stages …]
alamak!
Any Duit Rakyat comments yet? :P
What happen to the support local as mentioned by TDM….wonder if we should stop buying local made products?
I wished Ford sponsors Karam a Fiesta S2000. :)
Morale of the story, never modified your car.
A good show by Proton Satria Neo.