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López takes maiden European win as ERC Juniors steal the show

Pepe López scored a maiden FIA European Rally Championship victory on his home round and showed the quality of the ERC1 Junior stars in R5 cars, with Chris Ingram taking second overall.

A battle royale was expected between López and overnight leader Alexey Lukyanuk, who had won four stages apiece on Friday. But their fight would end on the first stage of the second leg, as while López took his fifth stage win, Lukyanuk clipped the inside of a corner and broke his front-left wheel and suspension.

From there López managed his lead diligently, becoming the first Spanish winner of an ERC round since Enrique García Ojeda in 2007. López’s decision to back off allowed Toksport WRT’s top driver Ingram to close up slightly, as a frenetic battle for the final podium position unfolded.

Ingram and double ERC Junior champion Marijan Griebel had begun the final loop of Rally Islas Canarias locked in battle over second place but the German driver fell into the clutches of Iván Ares and Norbert Herczig behind, entering SS14 only 0.8s up on the former.

Griebel’s podium hopes evaporated when he picked up a puncture on the Galdar stage, driving to the finish and dropping nearly two minutes, which demoted him from third to ninth. His Baumschlager Rallye & Racing stablemate Norbert Herczig also suffered a puncture on the same stage though fared much better, dropping only 20s.

Ares had suffered a similar fate to Griebel and Herczig one stage earlier but lost less time, dropping from fourth to seventh.

That opened the door for Łukasz Habaj, who won the final two stages of the rally and shot up to the final podium place. Team OSCARO’s Pierre-Louis Loubet had also been on a charge since being set back by a delaminated tyre on Friday and was right behind Habaj throughout leg two, entering SS16 only 3.1s off a podium place.

Ultimately Loubet pushed slightly too hard on the final stage, sliding wide into a ditch and losing around five to seven seconds and allowing Herczig to retake fourth place for MOL Racing Team.

Loubet still secured a top five finish and an all-important third place finish in ERC1 Junior, finishing 1.7s behind Herczig and clear of Ares in sixth.

ERC1 Junior graduate José Suárez looked set to finish seventh on his ERC return with Rally Team Spain but engine problems cost him several minutes on the final loop, dropping him to P15.

Instead it was Ares’ Hyundai Motor España team-mate Surhayen Pernía that would finish in seventh, edging a very close duel with Canary Islands rally legend Luis Monzón. The Auto-Laca Competición driver finished 2.2s behind Pernía in eighth, with Griebel half a minute behind in ninth.

Niki Mayr-Melnhof, who was once team-mates with Albert von Thurn und Taxis in GT racing, scored a top 10 finish on his ERC debut. Had it not been for a spin on the very first stage of leg two, an even better finish was possible, given he had been ahead of Pernía and Monzón. Meanwhile, his former team-mate from GT racing finished P16 after a trouble-hit final day.

Alexandros Tsouloftas banked valuable points for his ERC1 Junior championship campaign by finishing fourth in his class, turning in a mistake-free performance on his asphalt debut to accrue valuable mileage on sealed surfaces.

Reigning ERC Ladies champion Emma Falcón completed the top five in ERC1 Junior, the Fuerteventura native having moved up from ERC3 to four-wheel drive R5 machinery with Escudería Fuertwagen Motorsport this year.

Alberto Monarri (Abarth Spain – SMC Junior Motorsport) scooped Abarth Rally Cup honours and a €12,000 prize to go with his winner’s trophy, also topping the ERC2 production category. Fellow Spaniard Carlos David García (Ovrecame Competición) finished second, with Dariusz Poloński (Rallytechnology) completing the podium.

Florian Bernardi won ERC3 ahead of Yohan Rossel and Jean-Baptiste Franceschi in an all-French podium. Franceschi, meanwhile, took ERC3 Junior honours in his Pirelli-equipped Ford Fiesta R2 ahead of Rally Team Spain’s Efrén Llarena and FPAK Portugal Team ERC driver Pedro Antunes. A separate ERC3 report will be issued separately.

Leg two recap: Sun shines on Juniors in Spain
A grand finale between rising ERC1 Junior star Pepe López and Alexey Lukyanuk was expected to go down to the wire after a very close battle on leg one. Instead, the young gun would take a comfortable, controlled victory by nearly half a minute, as the experienced Lukyanuk retired after only one stage.

Clipping the inside of a fast left corner, Lukyanuk broke a wheel and the suspension on his Saintéloc Racing-prepared Citroën C3 R5. He reached the finish but would go no further, retiring and handing the reins to the Citroën España-backed López.

Niki Mayr-Melnhof took a few corners to get warmed up, spinning at the very first turn of the opening Arucas stage and dropping four places.

Come SS10, with the win looking assured, López backed off and his rivals came out to play. Pierre-Louis Loubet was on a charge and won the next two stages, keen to make up for a delay on Friday that had dropped him from third to eighth. He passed Łukasz Habaj for sixth on Galdar and had designs on the final podium place. There was a setback to come, though, as a jump-start on Moya earned him a 10s penalty and put him straight back behind the Pole once again.

Iván Ares and Norbert Herczig ahead were swapping places over fourth position ahead, while Galdar caused trouble for two other crews; Toksport WRT’s Alexandros Tsouloftas and Escudería Fuertwagen Motorsport’s Emma Falcón, who both picked up punctures. Xevi Pons was struggling too, allowing Luis Monzón past into P10.

Loubet was finally beaten to the top time on a stage by ERC1 Junior graduate José Suárez, who previously competed for Peugeot Rally Academy but now represents Rally Team Spain in a Hyundai i20 R5. He was another driver mounting a comeback after a tyre delamination on Friday and had marched up to eighth, winning SS12. It was the last stage for reigning ERC2 champion Tibor Érdi Jr. though, who felt ill-at-ease with the ŠKODA Fabia R5 which he switched to late last year. He elected to retire at midday service to preserve his car.

Come the afternoon loop it was a different ERC1 Junior frontrunner topping the timesheets; the category points leader, Chris Ingram. With Marijan Griebel not far behind in third, he was keen to defend his second place, though a big sideways moment in fifth gear showed Griebel wasn’t backing down.

As Ingram went quickest again on the second pass of Moya, hopes of a podium for Ares vanished. He had closed to only 0.8s behind Griebel but damaged the front-left of his Hyundai, picking up a puncture and dropping to seventh. It was the beginning of the end for Suárez’s hopes of a strong result too, his car developing a power issue that cost him several minutes across the last three stages of the rally and dropped him out of the top 20.

Griebel and Herczig’s podium ambitions were both hit on SS15 by punctures. In Herczig’s case only 20s was lost, demoting him to fifth. But for Griebel the consequences were far greater, limping home two minutes down and falling to ninth. The big winner in all of this was the current championship leader, Habaj, who had ascended to third place with his first stage win of the rally.

Loubet was now fourth and had Habaj in his sights but, instead of sneaking onto the podium at the finish line, he fell to fifth, sliding into a ditch and dropping behind Herczig into fifth place, who had also “pushed like hell” to score a strong result.

Zdroj: fiaerc.com