The end of the Canon 45. Mecsek Rallye was really tight: at the last special stage at Árpádtető, Belgian Neuville, Nicolas pair pushed hard and they came into the goal 7 seconds before Kopecky, who was in the first position after Mikkelsen crashed out.
According to the results reached on the field, the Czech Jan Kopecky, Petr Stary pair won the weekend in front of Neuville (with 0,8 seconds!), the third place goes to Loix.
In the national championship ASI and his co-driver Pikó won (and they are champions), the second is Róbert Bútor and the third one is Dávid Botka.
SS13 was briefly halted after Andreas Mikkelsen, the leader, hit a log by the side of the course and damaged his car too badly to continue. The log was knocked into the road, so the stage was temporarily halted in order for the obstruction to be removed.
The ŠKODA UK Motorsport team confirmed that Mikkelsen and co-driver Ola Fløene were uninjured. SS14 will now get underway at 15:11 rather than 14:53.
Andreas Mikkelsen leads a fierce battle for the lead on the opening day of the Canon Mecksek Rallye. Driving a ŠKODA UK Motorsport Fabia S2000, Mikkelsen holds sway over team-mate Jan Kopecký by just 8.7s, with Peugeot ace Thierry Neuville a further 12.7s behind.
Due to last minute changes in the schedule of the US Open 1/2 finales the programming of the IRC programmes on Eurosport are now as follows (all times cet):
The director of the race asked the press office at 16:30 to publish the following judgment:
After SS 4 (Alsómocsolád-Mecsekpölöske) we summarized the experiences of the judges and the drivers. We watched the recordings of the internal cameras and we listened to the racers’ opinions, so we decided to cancel SS 8, because it can’t be organised safely.
The stage is taken out from the program, but there is no change in the time table.
We kindly ask you to not go to that stage.
The investigation after the accident is finished at Remeterét. There won’t be changes in the program, so the first stage at Hetvehely starts at 09:08, as it can be found in the program as well.
The first day started with a sad accident: between Remeterét and Orfű a civil car turned on the road and crashed with a pick-up truck which was driving orderly. The driver of the civil car died on the scene, people sitting in the car were not hurt.
The stage is closed, the police investigates the scene. We kindly ask you to evade that part of the road.
If there is any change in the program, we will send the breaking news for you.
The prologue of the Canon 45. Mecsek Rallye took place in front of huge crowd of spectators in a sparkling atmosphere. The 1.2 km long stage was placed at the usual parking of Plaza, but there were lots of drivers not seen before on Hungarian fields.
Jean-Pierre Nicolas (IRC Motorsport Development Manager, pictured nearest camera), Bryan Bouffier, Toshihiro Arai, Andreas Mikkelsen, Per-Gunnar Andersson, Toni Gardemeister, Mark Wallenwein, János Tóth and János Puskádi attended the pre-event press conference for Canon Mecsek Rallye earlier today. A transcript follows.
