Another fantastic victory for Skoda Motorsport factory team – Jan Kopecky and Petr Stary have won the 39th Czech Rally Zlin.
Making Skoda Motorsport’s fifth appearance in this year’s Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC) series and this great achievement even sweeter, Juho Hanninen and Mikko Markkula came third.
With record-breaking 24 vehicles on the start line of the Super 2000 category, the Czech Rally Zlin started on Friday night with a super special stage, a great attraction for the fans who, as usual in Zlin, were coming in large numbers throughout this weekend. Beating his team-mate Kopecky by one second, Juho Hanninen won the event prologue and took the lead before Saturday.
The event agenda included altogether 15 stages with a total length of 254.96 km, one on Friday, eight on Saturday and the remaining six on Sunday. Right from the start, the top ten racers with overall victory aspirations were fighting a fierce battle for each second, including Jan Kopecky who won five of Saturday’s eight trials to take a 61-second lead before the last day. With one speed trial victory, Juho Hanninen was fourth. A heavy rain made the last two last trials on Saturday quite challenging, especially for those with dry-road tyres.
The first three stages on Sunday were bit of a tyre-selection lottery, as the track was still wet. Jan Kopecky did not let his rivals to get anywhere near him and, adding another speed trial win, cruised to a comfortable overall victory, Juho Hanninen took a small ‘trip’ out of the track first but then won the last two trials and came third, which indeed is another superb achievement for the entire team after its ‘double’ in Russia this July.
Head of Skoda Motorsport Michal Hrabánek was more than happy: ‘This is a great moment, we have been under enormous pressure on our home ground, and it is clear that we have to put down this great victory and the fantastic third place for the Skoda brand and the Fabia Super 2000 to excellent work put in by all members of our team. I wish to thank both our crews and all of my colleagues for this. Since the beginning of this year, when we returned to the motorsport scene, our vehicles and both our crews have been showing that they are prepared well, competitive and reliable. Furthermore, the ‘private’ Fabias have done a good job here in Zlin, too – the Belgian team RGRS with Pavel ValouSek came sixth, A-style (Italy) with Yevgenyi Novikov dropped out shortly before the end, after achieving very good times throughout the weekend.’
- Skoda Motorsport
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