Glenn Macneall (left) and Hiroshi Arai will contest this weekend’s Estonia Rally.= = = =
The San Marino Rally was won by Giandomenico Basso’s petrol fuelled Fiesta R5, beating Simone Campedelli’s similar, but gas powered, car.
Top seeded Paolo Andreucci rolled his Peugeot 208T16. Andreucci still leads the Italian CIR championship, but less than three points separate him from Skoda driver Scandola, and Basso.
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Reigning ERC champion Kajetan Kajetanowicz heads the entry list for this weekend’s Auto 24 Rally Estonia, based at Tartu, but centred at Otepaa.
After the curious boycott of top drivers from the previous ERC event at Ypres, all three leading European championship drivers have entered for the sixth round of the 10-event series, with Kajetanowicz and Alexey Lukyanuk being challenged by the 22 year old Ralfs Sirmacis, who won the ERC Acropolis Rally this year.
Very fast stages are a feature of the event, but there are also two downtown city stages, in Tartu and in Elva.
Two notable entries are the Japanese Toyota candidate drivers Hiroshi Arai (with Australian Glenn Macneall co-driving) and Takamoto Katsuta, both driving R5 cars for the first time on a major rally.
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The Estonia Rally will host the fourth round of the ERC Junior series in which three different drivers have won the preceding rounds. All the top four Juniors have entered, but the English driver, Chris Ingram, will have a different co-driver, Elliott Edmondson replacing Katrin Becker.
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Dani Sordo was released from hospital in Finland after one night, reporting that he had a fractured vertebrae. He hopes to be fit enough to compete in Neste Rally Finland, recce for which starts in 16 days’ time, but admits his back is still very sore.
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The popular Swiss Valais Rally, an active and often spectacular round of the European or the IRC series since 1980, has reluctantly decided that the event’s long held ambition to be promoted to the WRC is no more than a dream.
This is on account of the FIA’s wish not to promote any more European events.
The Valais will continue at International championship status, this time in the Tour European Rally series, along with events in Romania, Madeira and Austria.