After SS1: Al-Rajhi fastest on the Nicosia streets to lead Cyprus ERC counter Yazeed Al-Rajhi leads round nine of the FIA European Rally Championship as the CNP Asfalistiki Cyprus Rally got off to a dramatic start through the streets of Nicosia live on Cypriot television. With thousands of fans lining the route of the 5.98-kilometre mixed-surface stage, which included a section in the UN Buffer Zone separating Cyprus and North Cyprus, Al-Rajhi stopped the clocks in a time of 5m04.1s at the wheel of a Ford Fiesta RRC. “It was good but I hit one chicane and I think I have a tyre open,” said the Saudi Arabian driver. “We did the fastest time and my co-driver Michael Orr did a good job. We can push now for the rest of the rally. I think we can do a good pace.” Robert Consani (Peugeot 207 S2000) was second fastest, 2.8s behind Al-Rajhi with Khalid Al-Qassimi third quickest despite an overshoot in his Citroën DS3 RRC. And Al-Qassimi wasn’t the only driver to report a mishap with Antonín Tlusťák, Martin Hudec and Jaroslav Orsák (pictured) among those to complete the test with damage to their cars. Abuldaziz Al-Kuwari was fourth quickest with Bruno Magalhães fifth fastest in a Peugeot 208T16 and Craig Breen next up in another 208T16. Nasser Al-Attiyah was seventh quickest but said his car’s water temperature had peaked at 140 degrees centigrade. His Fiesta was also sporting damage to the driver’s door. Kajetan Kajetanowicz, the Qualifying Stage winner, lost some 30 seconds after he the steering on his LOTOS Rally Team Ford Fiesta R5. Panicos Polykarpou was the leading Cypriot driver and also tops the ERC Production Car Cup standings with the eighth quickest time. ERC Production Car Cup title chasers Martin Hudec and Vitaliy Pushkar were ninth and 10th respectively, 0.7s apart. Saturday’s action gets underway with the Kotsiatis stage from 09.20hrs local time. The stage measures 15.27 kilometres in length with 21 per cent of the run on Tarmac and 79 per cent on gravel.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 17:41:09 +0000
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