ERC: Sata Rallye Acores / Rally review
We’re off
Three stages formed the short opening loop on
Thursday evening. After two proper stages the
crews tackled a fiery spectacular Super Special
stage before returning to Ponta Delgada for the
overnight halt. Craig Breen drew first blood by
winning the opening stage but was delayed on
the second when he had to stop twice (!) to avoid
boulders that had rolled into the stage. Main beneficiary was Kajetan Kajetanowicz who finished
the day in second, just under a second behind
Breen. Local hero Ricardo Moura quickly got to
grips with his new Fiesta R5 and was up in fourth
already, ahead of his compatriots Sousa and
Magalhães.
Shakeup
It didn’t take long for the drama to start once the
second day got underway. On the first stage of the
morning a single corner caught out both Ricardo
Moura and Kajetan Kajetanowicz who apparently
ran over the exact same rock which destroyed
both of their cars’ suspension. Rock 2, Ford Fiesta 0. With two of the main contenders out already
the attention shifted towards an internal Peugeot
fight between Breen and Abbring. Neither of them
however would make it through the day without
incident. Electrical problems forced Breen out of
the event just after the midday break and Abbring
barely made it through due to some ingenuitive
repairs. The power steering on Abbring’s 208
failed on the penultimate stage and with another
full stage until the final service Abbring and codriver Seb Marshall had to improvise. Some ca-
36/44
Small mistakes frustrated Bouffier who felt he should have done better.
ble ties eventually proved useful to complete the
fix and allow them to continue. Abbring realised
he was lucky to have made it “I am not really a
mechanic so it is a miracle I am here.”
Turnaround
Emerging from the battlefield was Bernardo
Sousa who had his share of bad luck early on,
but now kept a steady pace to overtake all those
who were in trouble in front. Sousa was not without issues of his own though. The launch control
system on his Fiesta had malfunctioned all event
long, but that didn’t stop him from taking advantage when others hit trouble. “The bad luck cannot happen only to me,” said Sousa. “Of course I
would like to be winning on the road, not for the
mechanical problems of the others. But they had
some benefits from my problems.”
Finns are never really at home on tarmac, so when the gravel came Lappi was happy.