Solans lifts the Junior title with a measured victory in Spain
For the rest of his career Nil Solans will never celebrate finishing second on a stage the way he did when Terry Folb beat him on Saturday morning’s El Montmell opener.
Solans’ only rival for the Junior World Rally Championship title, Nicolas Ciamin, had to win that stage. In fact, Ciamin had to win every stage and hope the series-leading Spaniard hit trouble. Folb won SS7 and Solans set about some mid-event revelry.
Worse was to come for Ciamin, when he crashed in the afternoon, allowing Solans to lead the field home and clinch a third pair of prize drives in an M-sport Ford Fiesta R5 next season.
Solans, who won the WRC3 crown in Germany in August, said: “It’s fantastic to take the Junior championship, but the extra two rallies in the R5 car are really special.”
M-sport celebrated a second WRC2 win in as many rounds with Teemu Suninen dominating day one’s gravel stages before defending his advantage over the weekend on asphalt.
Truth be told, Skoda factory driver Jan Kopecky probably deserved this one. There are few in the WRC2 series who can match the Czech star’s pace on asphalt, but he was denied a possible victory by privateer World Rally Car driver Jourdan Serderidis. Kopecky started Friday’s Terra Alta test three minutes behind the Greek driver’s DS 3 WRC, but the R5 man made up that time well before the end of the 24-miler and was left lost in his dust.
Understandably Kopecky was fuming at the finish, but turned his anger into adrenalin and romped through the weekend’s asphalt stages, fastest on every one he pulled a minute back on Suninen.
The super-cool Finn admitted he’d driven with his minute-plus lead in the back of his mind to deliver a first class win of the year.
Mexican Benito Guerra overcame the flu to bring his Fabia home a distant third.
British drivers Gus Greensmith and Jon Armstrong struggled to make the impression they would have hoped for. Greensmith retired on the opening test with damaged steering, but bounced back with some solid times through Saturday and Sunday – the highlight being a seventh fastest overall on the second run along the Salou seafront.
Armstrong, in his second and final DMACK prize drive of the year, started the event never having driven an R5 on gravel before and immediately ran into trouble with a puncture on the opener.
He said: “The temperatures have been pretty high this weekend so we struggled a bit with some tyre wear on the gravel. On the Tarmac we had a good enough run – just some spins and overshoots of my own making.
“I felt like we were pushing just as hard as we were in Germany but just couldn’t get the same balance with the car so there’s some work to do there. But we’re here in one bit and the car is looking good so we’re happy enough with that on what was only our second time in an R5 car.”
BRC regular Rhys Yates was forced out with powersteering failure at the end of Saturday, but returned on Sunday, furthering his experience.
Fellow Fiesta R5 driver Max Vatanen crashed heavily on the second stage of the event and was airlifted to hospital, but was later discharged without serious injury.