Photo: Martins Sesks Rally
The second stage of the European Rally Championship (ERC), the Rally of the Canary Islands, started on Thursday with training and a qualifying drive. Hungarian Miklos Chomos, who experienced a spectacular crash in this rally a year ago, was the fastest in practice. Mārtiņš Sesks/Renārs Francis finished in 25th place in training.
Last year’s winner of the Canary Islands, Ioan Bonato, was the fastest in qualifying, ahead of Spain’s Diego Ruiloba by 0.1 seconds. The third – Chomos. The results, as predicted, were very fierce. The top 4 drivers entered in 0.3 seconds. Seska’s crew lost 3.7 seconds to the fastest. Sesks admitted that before the rally they managed to conduct small tests, which are not enough to be able to show faster times in the first asphalt rally with the new “Toyota GR Yaris Rally2”, so this rally will be a learning experience in order to improve their speed on asphalt, which not being the athlete’s favorite cover.
It should be reminded that last year Sesks finished in ninth place with the Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 car.
12th place went to the three-time winner of this rally, Aleksei Lukyaniuk, while last year’s ERC champion Hayden Padon finished in 18th place.
The start of the rally with the Super special stage will start tonight (22:35 LV time), but the main battles will take place on Friday and Saturday. In total, the athletes will have to complete 13 speed stages (193 km).
Qualification results:
Tags: Seskam #26th position qualification ERC Rally Canary Islands
