The Proton Motorsports team is now in Ukraine for the Prime Yalta Rally, which is the fourth round of this season’s Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC). Their last IRC event was Round 2 (Rally Islas Canarias) in Spain, where the team collected its first points of the season. The yellow Neos then skipped Round 3 (Tour de Corse) to focus on the APRC’s Queensland Rally in Australia.
The three-day event sees Proton fielding its strongest line-up to date in the IRC. Against the backdrop of the Crimea region’s Ai-Petri Mountains on the north coast of the Black Sea, Yalta consists of 14 special stages run entirely on asphalt over a combined distance of 721.61 km.
Things are off to a good start. Two of three Proton Satria Neo Super 2000 cars finished in the top 10 after Leg 1. Italian Giandomenico Basso, who scored in Spain for Proton, is the highest placed in eighth position after the opening day’s two SS and just 5.6 seconds adrift of current leader Thierry Neuville (Peugeot 207 S2000). Teammate P-G Andersson is a further three seconds behind to round up the top 10 dominated by Peugeot and Skoda.
Proton’s third entry, piloted by Ukrainian rally star and former USSR rally champ Oleksandr Saliuk Sr is 18th overall from a total of 42 registered competitors, 26.7 seconds down the order. Saliuk Sr’s son Alexander had earlier been scheduled to drive the third Neo S2000 but suffered a broken arm, so in came dad.
Special stage 1 began in the outskirts of Yalta over a short 2.12 km sprint before moving on to Livadija for the second special stage, which was run over a distance of 5.49 km. Leg 2 will consist of six special stages to be run today while the third and final leg on Saturday will also be run over another six special stages.
New to the IRC calendar, the Prime Yalta Rally has levelled the playing field somewhat, with teams not having the benefit of previous technical data to rely on. The changing weather conditions has also made it even more challenging with the varying levels of grip, according to Proton team members in Ukraine. Good luck guys!
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yalta!? 2 hours from where im at….
wo show some supports mate
Go dude…go….
boringgg :(
proton win to much make you boring? hehe
nice! more exposure of Proton in Europe..
anybody know the TV schedule for IRC?.. last time there was a ‘live’ aired on Astro Eurosport
cayalah proton…terbbbaaaikkk!!!! perodua xnak anta myvi baru masuk rally ke~~~ hahaha
Lovely Car.
i like the tiger stripes from the door to the back fender
look nice, maybe they can come up with more stripes in next season
After SS7, Proton is in position # 9 (PG Andersson), #12 (Basso) and #13 (Saliuk Oleksandr sen.) out of 31 cars.
Best /highest position attained so far is #5 (Basso) after SS5.
Currently SS8 is in progress.
The rally is lead by who else but Henninen.
The gap with the 2nd position driver is 12.9 seconds after SS8 (result not yet comprehensive as SS8 is in progress).
Just wondering la.. Where in Malaysia i could learn to drive a rally car?? Is there any school here??
you may try the Initial-D game at the arcade! =P
errr..from the stripe..
what was the “PRIME”?
Shawal are you going??
Final result for Proton.
11th place secured by 3rd team drivers (Ukrainian’s Saliuk Oleksandr sen.). Gained the place mainly due to retirement of others drivers (two Proton works cars included).
I guess this is a one-off arrangement just for this rally as this guy is a former Ukraine rally champion. Wise to give 1 car to good native driver as they will know the stages well.
Both team drivers seem to be out due to mechanical / technical issue with the car by end of day 1. No time from them from the start of day 2 onwards.
There’s one thing that is consistent with the Neo. Unreliability. Will Proton pull the plug if this continue to dominate the team fate in 2011?
On another note, Proton participation in IRC received almost no media exposure at all in Malaysia media (expect here and Astro Eurosport channel). This is perplexing since a ‘Malaysian’ team = PROTON is competing!).
Proton (via Lotus) have F1 glitz and glamor now.. Maybe the corp comm is so in with F1 and just ignore benefits from exposing their participation in the IRC to Malaysian at large.
I would to see the mainstream media showed highlights of the team participation in IRC rallies in their Sport news slot rather than showing .. let say.. South America football league highlight footage!
small , but crucial correction.
The proton 3rd driver only finish in 11th position in overall day 3 result.
however, in official full results of the rally, he wasn’t in the final classification list.
I dont understand why.
Maybe because he wasn’t register to collect IRC points or whatever.
So, officially, Proton returned empty-handed from Ukraine.
There’s always next rally i.e. Ypres Belgium which is a very very nice rally.