Work rate

From the outside this thing mighty look easy, but don’t be fooled. Timur Timerzyanov and Derek Tohill bagged fastest times in Supercar and TouringCar respectively this morning, adding to their identical results yesterday afternoon to earn themselves the privilege of sitting out the third heat if they so choose. While Russian and Irishman are having a relatively smooth passage through the even, others are already facing and early bath, or struggling to work steep learning curves.

Timeryanov was fastest again in heat two. © Henk de Winter/RallycrossWorld.com

Belgian Jos Jansen got tangled up in a first corner incident that put him out of the first heat yesterday afternoon, and didn’t even make to the turn this morning before clashing with Csaba Pallag-Bozsak. Again the unique Focus III Supercar came off worst, Jansen limping round for a lap before retiring with broken suspension. He can start the third heat, but there will be no place in the finals as has non-finished in two heats.

Norwegian Morten Bermingrud, meanwhile, managed to join the event this morning having lost the first day to a gearbox failure. “The main shaft in the gearbox broke, we have never had that before and Kenneth [Hansen] said that he has never broken that part in the years that he used those gearboxes. Always something new!” said Bermingrud who was eighth in the second heat but remains at the bottom of the order and in need of a second finish along with Kevin Procter – who retired with broken suspension after an aggressive pass by Timerzyanov – Pavel Koutny, Davy Jeanney and Mats Lysen.

Kim Steinsholt spun and retired his BMW 1 from the TouringCar heat while Robert Repasi non-started Patrick Mertens’ VW Polo.

The heat of the competition is being felt most keenly among the Super1600 pack where Krzsyztof Skorupski bashed in a great drive to top the second heat ahead of yesterday’s fastest man Ulrik Linnemann. Eric Faren was again third fastest, Ildar Rakhmatullin surviving a rough race and repeating yesterday’s fourth place time despite bodywork damage.

Down in 12th yesterday, Vadim Makaraov rose to sixth this morning while René Münnich improved from 22nd to 12th. “Vadim and René are both working hard here but it’s better than yesterday so that’s good,” said German engineer and driver coach Rolf Volland. “It’s no good trying to adjust the setup if you have wheelspin or coming back and saying ‘sorry, I didn’t have enough revs on and missed the start’, in the other classes at the moment it might be possible to make a mistake and recover but in Super1600 it’s not possible; lose four-tenths and you lose ten places. Okay, if they don’t have these problems, then it’s not necessary for someone like me so perhaps I should be happier but I want them to have the best result…”

At Lydden and in Austria, rally driver Jaroslav Vancik has been impressive, but in the CB Motorsport team that is running the Czech there is also an educational story. “He was engineer for [WRC driver] Martin Prokop for many years so he understands the technical stuff and is also a very good rally driver; the speed and different surfaces is not a problem, but racing lines, tactics and contact are new. At Lydden his got a big hit in the rear and was going to stop, but we had tell that was normal, just drive,” said a CB engineer. Using a season of selected events in an ex-Cermak Skoda Fabia, Vancik is building a Super1600 Citroën C2, but is now considering keeping that car for rallies instead of using it in Rallycross as originally planned.

With 28 cars still running, and little to choose between the top few drivers, Super1600 is intense. Down in the danger zone at the bottom of the order, Stanislav Susta and Ondrej Smetana crashed out of the second heat together. Gabor Bankuti, Gergely Papp and Jaroslav Kalny finished the sceond heat after first day troubles and Hungarian “Luigi” posted a finish after losing yesterday’s time when scrutineers judged the underbody protection of his VW Polo to be in contravention of the regs [There is a maximum weight for underbody skids to prevent them being used as a method of adding ballast]. All six need to finish in the third heat in order to stand any chance of making a final.

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