Media Information
Silk Way Rally 2018
24 July 2018
Silk Way Rally 2018, First Edition, Stage 4: Astrakhan to Astrakhan
.
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MINI tops the leader board after Stage 4 of Silk Way Rally
in Russia. -
Yazeed Al Rajhi and co-driver Timo Gottschalk in a MINI John
Cooper Works Rally complete Stage 4 in second and now lead Silk
Way Rally -
Joan ‘Nani’ Roma and Alex Haro in a second MINI John Cooper
Works Rally finish third in stage.
Munich. MINI Motorsport leads the 2018 Silk Way Rally (First
Edition) after Yazeed Al Rajhi
(KSA) and co-driver
Timo Gottschalk (GER) achieved second place in today’s Stage 4
of the seven stage event. The second MINI John Cooper Works Rally of
Joan ‘Nani’ Roma (ESP) and co-driver Alex Haro (ESP) finished the
stage in third place.
After four days of racing, the MINI Family crews have experienced
dry, bumpy conditions during Stage 1, and an overnight Marathon Stage
going into Stage 3, which meant only drivers and their co-drivers
could service their vehicles.
Stage 3 turned out to be the total opposite of the two previous
stages. Torrential rain resulted in deep mud along the route and
caused problems for many competitors. This eventually led to the
organisers cancelling the stage. Interestingly, of the three race
vehicles that made it to the end of the stage without problems, two
were the MINI John Cooper Works Rally cars.
For Yazeed Al Rajhi and Timo Gottschalk, their leading position comes
after consistent results. For the pairing of Roma and Haro, it is a
case of what could have been. During Stage 1, Roma was forced to
retire from the stage after the bumpy conditions aggravated an old
injury. This meant the pairing were handed a time penalty of 110
hours. Since then, Roma has driven like a man possessed to achieve a
fifth and two third place finishes to move his MINI John Cooper Works
Rally to 222nd overall.
Al Rajhi: “We are delighted with having taken the
lead and demonstrates that you should never give up – even if you have
lost some time on day one. We opted for a very controlled approach in
the previous stages and tried to avoid making mistakes – we are really
happy with our strategy. We hope to be able to defend our lead in the
coming stages and that things will keep on running as flawlessly for
us as they did so far. But there still are three long days to go and
tomorrow we will have to contest the longest stage of the entire
rally. Furthermore, the weather also makes for difficult conditions.
It’s raining a lot and consequently, the track often is very slippery.”
Roma: “Unfortunately, I have got stomach problems
that forced me to take a five-minute rest today. But afterwards I
found a good rhythm and succeeded in securing a good result. Apart
from that everything is fine – the MINI John Cooper Works Rally runs
perfectly and the team does a fantastic job. I’m really happy that
Yazeed took the lead for the team. I’m glad to be contesting this
rally, although the result isn’t as good as I hoped for.”
Tomorrow’s Stage 5 (Astrakhan – Volgograd) is the longest stage of
the 2018 Silk Way Rally (First Edition) and consists of 552.71km
distance, 443.79 of which are Special Stage racing against the clock.
For further information on Silk Way Rally 2018 and the full rally
schedule please click here.
Silk Way Rally 2018: overall standings after Stage 4