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The International Rally Challenge (IRC) was in Hungary over the weekend for the inaugural Canon Mecsek Rallye. The event was previously an IRC Supporter Event upgraded to a fully-fledged round of the IRC this year. Based in the town of Pecs – named the 2010 European Capital of Culture – in the south-west of Hungary, the 2011 event is the 44th edition of the rally.
After a very close fight, Jan Kopecký from Skoda won the rally, which was led by Skoda UK’s Andreas Mikkelsen right till the penultimate stage. But the Norwegian slid wide on gravel in a fast right-hand corner in SS13, damaging his Fabia. Peugeot’s Thierry Neuville made a great late charge to finish second, just short of overall victory by a slim 0.8s. Freddy Loix was third in a Skoda.
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As for Proton, both the Satria Neo S2000s were forced into retirement. PG Andersson began the two-day rally conservatively, finishing the opening special stage in 17th. His charge however, was dealt a blow when he hit a kerb and severely damaged a wheel through the 28km second special stage.
This forced him to make an unscheduled wheel change that cost almost 8 minutes, dropping him to 42nd overall. The car’s rear differential was also damaged. The Swede then fought back up to 39th place in SS5 before a technical problem eventually ended his rally in SS6.
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It wasn’t much better for PG’s two-time FIA European Rally Champion teammate Giandomenico Basso. The Italian was also forced into retirement due to an abnormal mechanical issue on the first day. The extremely rare failure of the oil filter seal caused all the engine oil to leak out, giving Basso no choice but to stop.
With a competitive distance of 251.86 km, the Canon Mecsek Rallye was run mainly on high-speed roads with more than 100 teams and 20 IRC regulars taking part. Next up, IRC will head to the beautiful Italian Riveira for the Rallye Sanremo on 22-24 September.
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Should have put Karamjit in that car and he will perform better!
mr Singh doesn’t compete in IRC la.. he drives different NEO tuned by Cusco in APRC.
what a shame
shame because nissan is not in this rally? Neo S2000 had better place than Subaru in APRC last year.
In the end, is still a Proton…
honda and ford sucks too .. http://www.rallye-info.com/event_retirements.asp?event=558 .. :P
you blind? basher always shoot without reading the whole result
so blind your heart must be dark to the core
shame your mentality
This show that the total packeage is a failure.
Even hiring top notch drivers reaped nothing!!
Time for Proton to re-think on what benefits
has it gained from this rally cos its just a waste of time
and they should put good money to better use.
Same applies to F1. What benefits has Proton gained?
A fat zilch !!
while i kindof agree with regards to F1, Proton does gain something from rally because rally is using production cars as base. The engineering team who are involved with the rally will learn more on how to make production cars more reliable and better performing by pushing the cars to the limit and knowing the limits (probably that broken filter was probably due to tuning that goes over the limits) .. the knowledge learnt can be used and applied in newer generation cars :-)
say what??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfbywR99HGo&feature=player_embedded
Some say bad mud won’t stick on the wall no matter how.
the reliability of proton rally car haven’t been improved yet..
another round of retirement… as usual..
rather than chicken out, they should stay and climb the learning curve.
first time watching rally? we had comprehensive performance in the first few races, doesn’t mean 1 race we retired is the end of everything
mind you we manage to get enough point and ranking among the seas of Skoda’s, Citroen’s, & Peugeot’s car
which is rare for us in top tier IRC rally ranking
and mind you, at APRC, we already almost clinching our championship
we need to stay clear in Japs round and china round
check http://www.fiaaprc.com/ for further result