Catalunya - Suzuki Motor Sport - Leg 2At the end of the second leg of the Catalunya Rally, Suzuki driver P-G Andersson leads the Junior Championship classification by nearly a minute after an incident-packed day.
His team mate (and Junior Championship leader) Urmo
Aava started the morning with a slender lead, but then lost time with a puncture on the second stage. As a result, he is now third in the overall classification.
With Michal Kosciuszko in sixth and Jaan Molder in seventh, there are now four Suzuki Swift Super 1600s in the top eight points-scoring places, with four stages left to run tomorrow before the end of the rally.
The Suzukis set five fastest stage times out of a possible eight today.
P-G Andersson:
"It's been a good day: we're back where we wanted to be now, which is in the lead! However, the others are close enough to take advantage of any problems we might have. I had a really big scare on SS9 today: I misheard a pace note from my co-driver Jonas, and we ended up taking what should have been a second gear corner much too quickly in fourth gear! I pulled the handbrake and the car went up the bank by the side of the road - then luckily it came back down again. It just goes to show that anything can happen and that you have to concentrate all the time on a rally as complex as this one.
"
Urmo Aava:
"We were unlucky today: we started off well but then we collected a front-left puncture on SS8 that we were forced to stop and change, which cost us about two minutes. It's disappointing but these things happen in rallying: they are just part of the game. I think the puncture occurred when I cut a corner a bit too sharply - but if you want to go quickly here you have to cut the corners: there's no choice. I'm a minute off second place but as always I'm not going to give up. Tomorrow I will keep on pushing hard to make up places."
Nobuhiro 'Monster' Tajima, Team Principal:
"Both P-G and Urmo had incidents today that highlighted the risks of this very fast rally. These illustrate the importance of being as careful as possible while keeping a consistent speed. Nonetheless, I am happy that we have two cars on the podium and four in the top eight - and that we have won all the stages apart from three on this rally so far, with no mechanical problems. Tomorrow's stages are nearly as long as today's distance, so we need to make sure that we bring all our cars to the finish."
Junior Rally Championship classification after SS14:
1 P-G Andersson Suzuki Swift S1600 2h46m49.6s
2 Martin Prokop Citroen C2 S1600 +55.5s
3 Urmo Aava Suzuki Swift S1600 +1m09.6s
4 Josef Beres Renault Clio S1600 +2m39.0s
5 Conrad Rautenbach Citroen C2 S1600 +4m59.4s
6 Michal Kosciuszko Suzuki Swift S1600 +7m35.4s
7 Jaan Molder Suzuki Swift S1600 +7m39.0s
8 Yoann Bonato Citroen C2-R2 +9m46.8s
Source Suzuki Motor Sport
