First 90km of Special Stages completed by all MRF Tyres shod crews successfully
The first leg of the 47th Rally Islas Canarias started with mixed conditions: there has been changing weather conditions in different parts of the island of Gran Canaria, making both setup and tyre choice challenging for all the competitors.
Team MRF Tyres’best crew was Efren Llarena and Sara Fernandez But he started the day with a penalty after the previous days’ SSS1 mistake and due to another competitor in SS4. But came back and was able to bring his best game in the afternoon.
The Spanish duo are followed by Simone Campedelli – Tania Canton who unfortunately lost many valuable seconds due to a red flag from a marshall on SS4. Anyway, after the midday service where the car set up was worked on, he managed to make considerable improvements which were clearly visible in performance.
Martins Sesks and Renars Francis finished the 6 stages inside the top 20: the Latvian tried climbing up in the classification after the penalty at SSS1, trying to improve the car set up during the day.
Dealer Team crews were led by Javier Pardo – Adrian Perez: even preferring the damp conditions rather than the dry. The hard work carried out during the pre-event preparations paid off;;[MR1] behind him, Andrea Mabellini – Virginia Lenzi had a consistent improvement for the whole leg, showing confidence with car handling in the afternoon. Mads Ostberg – Patrik Barth finished the Friday’s stages with a broken driveshaft between SS2 and SS3 which prevented the Norwegian in keeping within with the top drivers, turning his rally into a testing exercise for his next championship events on tarmac. Andrea Nucita and Rudy Pollet managed to keep their position in the top four, even that damp conditions suited more his driving style. Constant improvement was apparent for Bogdan Cuzma and Ilka Minor with the new event and with the English pacenotes,they were trying to learn and maximise the experience for the future.
For the last leg of Saturday, the itinerary includes other 6 special stages (three to be repeated two times) for a total mileage of another 100km. The crews will face ‘Arucas’ stage first (8.99km) before approaching the ‘Moya-Valleseco’ stage (27.74km, the longest of the entire rally). Lastly, San Mateo – Valsequillo (13.00km) will be the Power Stage awarding extra points for the first 4 crews.
Classification after SS7
3. Llarena Efrén – Fernández Sara +24.2
4. Nucita Andrea – Pollet Rudy +27.3
5.Pardo Siota J. – Pérez Fernández A. +31.4
9. Campedelli Simone – Canton Tania +43.7
10. Mabellini Andrea – Lenzi Virginia +44.0
17. Sesks Mārtiņš – Francis Renārs +1:04.8
22. Østberg Mads – Barth Patrik +1:53.6
27. Cuzma Bogdan – Minor Ilka +5:26.7