Rally Review - IRC Yalta Rally

Stars shine in their absence

by Martijn Kösters

The Intercontinental Rally Challenge set up camp around Yalta in the Ukraine for the 10^th round of this year's championship. A major disappointment came at that start of the Rally, when an inspection of the entry list learned that none of the big names in the IRC (as there are Mikkelsen, Kopecký, Hänninen or even youngsters like Wiegand) took part in this year's event.

Instead the field consisted of three Fiesta S2000s, a Fabia S2000, a 207 S2000, an Impreza R4 and two Lancer Evo R4s. A total of 8 cars would compete in the major class of this event. Further look at the entry list reveals a lot of Citroën C2 and Fiesta in R2 regulation, and old Citroën Saxo and more curiously a VAZ 2112 and 11193, which I would love to see in Rally trim. 

 

Even though the amount of entries was limited, this would not necessarily have to stand in the way of an interesting Rally, yet there were two drivers who were clearly superior to the rest. Mikko Pajunen (Fin) and Yuri Protsarov (Ukr) (both in Fiestas) could comfortably beat the rest of the field by a margin of 30 seconds on a 20 kilometer stage, which meant that after a combined hour of timed stages the gap to third was over 100 seconds, and fourth place was 3,5 minutes down the road.

When Pajunen had to retire after a stage 5 crash this left Protsarov lonely at the top of the standings, and most excitement seemed gone from the Rally. Further down Yagiz Avci was in second, 2.29 behind Protsarov and 2.03 ahead of Romainian Tempestini. Protsarov picked up a puncture on SS7 which cost him three minutes and the lead, which he retook after a storming drive on SS8, winning the stage by a full minute. Troubles on sunday morning put him out of the Rally. Stages on sunday afternoon saw only 14 teams left, Avci initially lead the Skoda S2000 of Hungarian Vicin, but a great drive of Robert Consani in a 2WD (!) Renault Mégané was rewarded with second place at the end of the rally.

The Prime Yalta Rally again showed a trend of inflation ongoing in the IRC, where in previous years a three-way battle between top-level drivers was guaranteed at every event, the 2012 IRC is a championship where many stars disappeared, and the few left are acting on a part-time basis. The fact that a 2WD car made it to the podium is partly due to Consani's driving capabilities, but mostly down to the lack of competition.

So far, Championship leader Andreas Mikkelsen was the only driver to compete in every Rally until this weekend. Juho Hänninen, thanks to three victories and a second place, is second in the standings. Note that he only had to compete in four rallies to secure 2^nd in the championship. Comparing the IRC to its big brother WRC, we see that the WRC has 15 drivers who have taken part in two-thirds or more of the events in the championship. In the IRC, only four drivers achieve this criteria, compared to ten last year. The Intercontinental Rally Challenge really needs to step up its game in order to remain the biggest championship behind the WRC. It is already not Intercontinental anymore, and it is now risking losing its appeal as a major championship.