Germany - FIA Juniors - FinishMartin Prokop (Citroën) and co-driver Jan Tománek took a fantastic victory on the fifth round of the 2007 FIA Junior Rally Championship, Rallye Deutschland, recording Prokop's debut Junior victory of the season and the second of his career.
Suzuki driver Urmo Aava was happy to score eight points for second and Conrad Rautenbach (Citroën) finished in third, albeit 2:15.9 minutes adrift of the Estonian. The result sees Aava head to the penultimate round the Championship with a four point lead in the FIA Juniors standings overall over fellow Suzuki driver P-G Andersson, who did not start in Germany.
As in Finland, Prokop made a brilliant start to the rally. But unlike in Finland he made no mistakes and drove faultlessly, winning 10 stages throughout the event, despite struggling with an intermittent engine problem on the second day.
While Aaron Burkart (Citroën) initially took second place, Aava soon found his rhythm and made second his own. And by SS4 Rautenbach adopted third from Burkart, which he also defended successfully by staying out of trouble, despite a few brake problems throughout leg two.
Local favourite Burkart started cautiously but he still picked up a puncture in SS4 and overshot a junction in SS6.
Aware that he incurred three punctures on the Baumholder stages last year, Burkart admitted to driving a little too carefully on leg two and while he stayed puncture-free, he did have difficulties with changing gears when he had a faulty display unit. A final puncture on the superspecial lost a few seconds before he finished in fourth.
Jozef Béreš (Renault) had quite a difficult start as his engine went on to three cylinders on the opening stage of the event. The next stage his brakes started to fade and by SS3 they stopped working; and on the last stage of leg one he dropped over two minutes changing a puncture. On SS10 the Slovak driver stopped to change two punctures losing another four minutes and after that he drove as carefully as possible to reach the finish in fifth.
On his first outing in Germany and his debut asphalt event in the FIA Juniors, Jaan Mölder (Suzuki) found that his incredibly detailed pace notes caused difficulty on stages with so many twists, turns and junctions. He initially struggled with building his speed but it improved as his confidence grew and a relatively trouble-free run saw him finish in sixth.
On the third WRC event of his career, Yoann Bonato (Citroën) had brake and differential problems through leg one, a few gearbox issues on leg two and he missed a junction on both SS5 and SS14. But the former French junior ski champion still put in a great drive to finish seventh. He also scored maximum points for the FIA Juniors Rookie Classification, promoting him to third in the standings behind Shaun Gallagher (Citroën) and Raphaël Auquier (Citroën).
Estonian driver Aigar Pärs (Suzuki) missed a junction on SS2 and then went off he road after missing another the stage following, costing him about two and half minutes. Leg two was a clearer run with only a spin in SS10 costing a few seconds but he stayed out of trouble on the final day to score his first FIA Juniors point for eighth.
Kalle Pinomäki (Renault) struggled to find a rhythm initially, then a puncture five kilometres into SS6 cost him 3min 40secs, pulling him back down the order to 14th. But a problem-free drive on legs two and three saw him work his way back up the leaderboard to eventually finish in ninth.
Gallagher found the event tricky, amazed at the amount of sheer concentration required to follow all the details in the notes. Despite making a few small mistakes he drove relatively trouble-free, to bring his C2-R2 to the finish in tenth. He also scored eight points towards the FIA Juniors Rookie Classification, increasing his lead to a huge 17 points ahead of nearest rival Auquier.
On his third WRC event and his debut on asphalt, Italian Luca Griotti (Renault) drove to gain experience. The 20-yearold, who is currently studying at University in London, has less than 10 rallies under his belt in total, so every stage completed was providing valuable data. He enjoyed his rally to finish in 11th.
Following a driving licence suspension by the Swedish authorities, Andersson was unable to start the rally so James Wozencroft (GB) was drafted in by Suzuki Sport Europe only one week before the event. He made a great start, even more impressive as it was only the second time that co-driver Jonas Andersson had read pace notes in English, which the pair made from scratch on the recce. But the duo hit problems on SS10 when they lost a wheel thus incurring 25 minutes in penalties for not completing the rest of the leg's stages. Leg three was much better and he eventually finished 12th.
Gilles Schammel (Citroën) started well but he dropped two minutes on SS5 when he continued driving on a puncture. Things went downhill on leg two; he stopped to change a puncture on SS10 then ran out of petrol on the road section back to service. Exceeding the permitted amount of lateness meant he adopted 20 minutes of penalties for stages uncompleted for the rest of the day, but the final leg proved better and he finished 13th.
Stefano Benoni's (Citroën) rally started badly as an off-road excursion on SS1 saw him incur a huge penalty total of 30 minutes for not contesting the rest of the day's stages, then on SS14 he stopped with a puncture and brake problems. A faulty clutch caused some concern on the final day but the Italian Rookie continued to finish 14th.
Raphaël Auquier (B, Citroën) suffered with steering problems on leg one and he had punctures on SS1 and SS4 which he stopped to change. But leg two proved harder as he went off the road on SS10 losing seven minutes before rejoining the road, only to go off again on the next stage, this time unable to rejoin. Then a clutch problem from early on leg three prevented him from starting SS17, the Belgian eventually finishing 15th.
Milos Komljenovic (Renault) had a really difficult rally as he spun twice on SS4 and a couple more times on SS5. Problems with the wheel nuts saw him lose seven minutes changing a puncture on SS6 before he broke the suspension arm nine kilometres into SS7, the first stage on leg two, which saw him sidelined. But he restarted leg three, despite his 40 minutes of penalties, to finally finish in 16th.
Reigning Junior Champion Patrik Sandell (Renault) started well but the engine of his Renault stopped on the start line to SS3. Two people jumped into the 'start control zone' to help Sandell, but this was considered outside assistance which is not permitted. It caused Sandell to be excluded from the event, dashing all chances of defending his title.
Unfortunately, Michal Kosciuszko (Renault) didn't get a chance to make any head way as he went off the road on SS1, causing so much damage he was unable to continue.
Manuel Rueda (Renault) was excluded from the FIA Junior Rally Championship after he failed to present any documentation as requested by the regulations, for failing to start in Finland two weeks ago. As a result, his accumulated points have been withdrawn.
Martin Prokop - Citroën C2 S1600
"I'm really happy. It wasn't easy but it wasn't as difficult as I expected and I was nervous after Finland so I wanted to avoid a similar mistake. But we had a perfect weekend, I made no mistakes and we had a comfortable lead through the whole rally. I hope we can score maximum points on the next events so we can finish in the top three in the Championship."
Urmo Aava - Suzuki Swift S1600
"Second is good, well, it's better than nothing! I'm a bit disappointed that I made lots of mistakes on Friday when the car set-up wasn't quite right. The fact that P-G was not here made it a bit easier. I tried to catch Martin (Prokop) until yesterday afternoon but then I knew it wasn't going to happen as he was driving too fast. Now I hope to fight for a win on the last two events."
Conrad Rautenbach - Citroën C2 S1600
"It's been a good weekend and we were able to go through without any major problems but it's a really tricky event. But from a certain point I was stuck in no man's land with a big gap in front and behind. We had a lot of fun today which helps with my confidence. I'm looking forward to Spain to see what we can do with the new set-up that we changed yesterday as well."
Source FIA Junior Rally Championship
