Setback for Craig Breen’s European Rally Championship title ambitions
Breen’s nemesis, Polish driver Kajetan Kajetanowicz (Ford Fiesta R5), came home in second place and moves back into the championship lead by five points. The rally was won by Russian Alexey Lukyanuk (Mitsubishi EvoX) – despite the addition of a 10-second penalty he finished 12.7 seconds ahead of Kajetanowicz.
Breen didn’t have the best of starts and was outside the top ten on the short stage in Tartu City on Friday night.
He climbed four places on Saturday’s opening stage and while he admitted he found it difficult to get into a rhythm, he was up to fifth after five stages.
On the afternoon stages he pushed hard and recalled a flat-out “tank-slapper” moment on one of the fast sections of the seventh stage. On the next stage he had problems with fifth gear and was forced to downshift on a few occasions, he ended the day in fourth place — 36.9 seconds off the lead.
Lukyanuk dropped to third following the addition of a ten second penalty for a jump-start on S.S. 6 but with a superb time on the 34.91km seventh stage, he was back in front and by the end of the day led Kajetanowicz by 2.4 seconds.
French driver Robert Consani retired his Citroen DS3 R5 with engine problems.
Early yesterday Breen struggled to keep the car in the correct line as overnight rain made the terrain very soft. Indeed, instead of making inroads to third place he slipped to fifth. By stage 13, the demise of third placed Egon Kaur (Mitsubishi) elevated him into fourth, 6.5 seconds behind the Mitsubishi of Rainer Aus.
Breen pushed hard on S.S. 14 and cut the deficit to Aus to a mere three seconds, however, engine related issues on the way to the penultimate stage forced him to retire.
“Towards the end of Stage 14, we started to lose oil pressure, something’s happened inside the engine and there is nothing we can do about it.
“We could have driven on for a bit, but it would have destroyed itself. We have to regroup for Barum.” said a disappointed Breen.
Meanwhile, Cashel driver Pat O’Connell (Mitsubishi) won the Kerry Rallysprint at the Tralee Racecourse for a third successive season. He used his experience of the 2.3km track to win by a fraction of a second with fellow Cashel driver from Liam Ryan in a Toyota Corolla WRC a mere six tenths of a second behind. The JB Buggy of Sixmilebridge driver Padraig Egan was 5.6 seconds further behind in third.
On the first run O’Connell led Ryan by six tenths of a second with the latter admitting to losing time at a chicane. The JB Buggy pair of Brian Hassett and Egan followed in a top seven that also included Mike Quinn (Mitsubishi) and the Subaru’s of Mike O’Connor and Owen Murphy.
On the second run Ryan turned the tables on his rival and moved into the lead, albeit by four tenths of a second as Egan displaced Hassett for third.
The third and final stage saw O’Connell serve up the best performance to take the spoils as Ryan’s Corolla suffered a rear right wheel puncture on the gravel section.
Cork racer Matt Griffin and Richie Wee netted top five finishes in rounds five and six of the Asia GT series at the Fuji Speedway in Japan.
On Saturday, they brought their Clearwater Racing Ferrari 458 Italia home in third place; they were fourth yesterday.
