Proton’s PG Andersson finished second in his Asia Pacific Rally Championship (APRC) debut over the weekend. Team MRF’s Chris Atkinson, a former Proton pilot, won the Brother International Rally of Whangarei in New Zealand with a 28.1 second margin over the Swede.
Fighting back to reduce an overnight deficit of more than a minute as a result of a puncture, PG set fastest time on five of the final day’s eight stages to finish second overall behind the Skoda Fabia S2000 of Atkinson. A further two minutes behind was the other Team MRF Skoda of India’s Gaurav Gill in third place.
Defending APRC champion Alister McRae finished fourth in the APRC class and fourth overall after enduring a difficult start to the rally. By starting first, he played the role of road sweeper for the rest of the field. In contrast, PG was fastest through SS1, but a puncture in the next stage lost him a minute and a half, demoting him to fourth in the APRC category. He however, fought back valiantly to finish the first day in second place.
Proton took a clean sweep at the podium in the 2WD category with defending APRC 2WD champion Karamjit Singh taking top honours ahead of privateer Mike Young and newly-signed young driver Kenneth Koh. The latter, in only his first international rally, also clinched second place in the APRC Junior category behind Young.
The next APRC rally will be in New Caledonia from April 28-29.
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Long Live Karamjit Singh !!!!!!
well done team proton s2000 and especially PG and Karam!!…1 of many more to come this year om sure!!
congratulations and good job proton
Mr Karamjit as always… a true winner, a true Malaysian champion
Mr Kenneth, good luck in the next race.
A bitter pil for P1 to swallow if Atkinson wins the championship, considering that they’ve dropped him.
Oh well, long season ahead. May the best wins!
what r u talking about??!!!
proton never dropped atkinson..
he made his own decision to move to MRF Team..
MRF is a team of established rally pedigree, having won the Asia Pacific championship in 2003, 2005, and 2010… they give better offer to atkinson and a good car too (Skoda Fabia S2000)..
I was trying to find the article that Atkinson decided to leave P1 (I know that he bad mouth P1 because of constant car breakdowns). Since I didn’t found any (I did found 1 news that P1 not offering him a drive), I’ve decided to politely write it down as P1 dropped him instead.
Please post the article if you saw it anywhere before. Thanks ya!
I wonder, what make Proton so strong in Rally? Ok lets forget about PERT days with Evo machine….Lets talk about this Neo S2000….is it due to the renault power unit? or the chassis itself ? or the driver…yes it is P2…but last year Proton manage to win everything in APRC…against car we would naturally think it is better than proton on the road….
I am big fan of Proton Motorsport…but often wonder…what make them so good?? i am sure the cant do any hanky panky as FIA are very strict on regulation
I believe that good chassis + good engine + good other component + good driver + great team work is the recipe for success.
A good engine without good chassis mean nothing in rally, vice versa.
A great car without great team support wont win anything.
Looking forward for another great year of success.
S2000 is a different class than the other Group N production cars (eg. Mitsubishi Lancer Evo & Subara Imprezas), are equipped with highly tuned suspension, more advanced transmission and brakes. S2000 is essentially a “downgraded” WRC car.
For example, you can get a N4 rally car anywhere from 60,000 to 140,000 euros but a S2000 rally car would cost 2-3 times as much (eg. Fiesta S2000 costs 280,000 euro). Furthermore, the spare parts for S2000 cars are several times more expensive than your usual N4 rally cars and you can’t just take your S2000 car to be serviced in normal workshops, they require a highly skilled technical team and close collaboration with the manufacturers.
Now that Fabia S2000 has entered the race, it will be an interesting event to watch because it is in the same “class” as Proton Satria Neo S2000. Before that, an S2000 is expected to win simply because it is more powerful than a normal Group N production car.
In s-wrc, proton already tapau skoda. Just that pg got punctured. If not, surely skoda beaten hands down
hey dude dont WONDER but BELIEVE…proton CAN DO…so do Malaysian..nothing is possible..
go Proton..go PG…hej ja…with disregard of tyre punctured & TAKE INTO ACCOUNT the number of fastest lap you’ve done …you are for sure a Champion not the MRF..i believe..