Brilliant Baryan claims second win of the season at the RSC Rally in Kenya
The RSC Rally was the fourth round of the 2017 Kenyan Rally Championship and saw Manvir Baryan (title photo above; photo by Rooney Weru) steer his FABIA R5 to victory for the second time this season, to secure both his career as well as the FABIA R5’s second win in Africa.
His debut win came earlier this year at the Mombasa Rally, the opening round of the Kenyan championship season, and after missing the podium in both subsequent rounds he and British co-driver Drew Sturrock were back to winning ways here.
Driving a FABIA R5 for the Multiple Racing Team, Baryan suffered no fewer than three punctures during the course of the rally. But with teammate and rival Tapio Laukkanen being forced to retire on stage 6, Baryan was still able to close out victory by a margin of 42 seconds from his closest rival.
2017 Cyprus Rally
Ole Christian Veiby’s busy season continued as he competed at the Aurskog-Høland Rally, the fifth round of the Norwegian Rally Championship. Driving alongside co-driver Stig Rune Skjærmoen in a Printsport Oy FABIA R5, Veiby finished on the podium in third place in what was his first drive at this event. Veiby had targeted the win and he was right in the mix at the top of the leaderboard until a puncture on stage 10 cost him around 25 seconds. In the end, he was 34 seconds adrift of the leader, but happy with the performance. “It’s been such a fantastic day, and the performances here are on the same level as in the WRC2,” said Ole Christian Veiby. “Being in a fight all day was so inspiring and it’s an amazing feeling to drive with maximum push all the way.”
At the Rally Žemaitija, the third round of the Lithuanian Rally Championship, there was a third place finish for Benediktas Vanagas / Agnė Vičkačkaitė-Lauciuvienė. In just their second drive in a FABIA R5, they finished almost 3 minutes clear of their closest rival to secure their second Lithuanian championship podium finish of the year.
There was another dominant performance from the ŠKODA Motorsport duo of Jan Kopecký / Pavel Dresler as they continued their 100% record in 2017 Czech Rally Championship with victory at the Rally Hustopeče, the fourth round of the season. The event also made up two rounds of the Slovak Rally Championship (each leg was a round). In that championship, Martin Koči and co-driver Filip Schovánek, in a FABIA R5 for the Styllex Motorsport s.r.o. team, were unlucky not to emerge with maximum points. They led the Slovak standings in the first leg until a puncture on the final stage of the day saw them fall back to third. Then on the second leg, they were again in the lead before brutal rain on Koči’s run in the last stage again cost him time as he ended up finishing second. Fellow FABIA R5 crew Grzegorz Grzyb / Jakub Wróbel, driving for the Rufa Sport team, finished second in the Slovak standings on the first leg and third on the second leg, which means that with three rallies to go, Koči sits second in the championship standings on 126 points (eight points behind leader Pavel Valoušek) while Grzyb is third on 118 points.
At the Rally di Alba - Memorial Silvio Stroppiana, which was a round of the Italian Rally Cup as well as the Italian Regional Championship (Zone 1) event, Marco Colombi / Angelica Rivoir finished first in the R5 class and second overall. They were just 17.1 seconds behind the overall winner Alessandro Gino, who was driving a WRC-category car.
In the French Rally Cup, at the Rallye National des Bornes, there was another victory for Team FJ as Ludovic Gal / Olivier Belot took victory in their FABIA R5 by a margin of 53.7 seconds. Jérémy Cretien / Lilian Jacquemoud finished fourth overall in their FABIA R5.
Brilliant Baryan claims second win of the season at the RSC Rally in Kenya
The RSC Rally was the fourth round of the 2017 Kenyan Rally Championship and saw Manvir Baryan (title photo above; photo by Rooney Weru) steer his FABIA R5 to victory for the second time this season, to secure both his career as well as the FABIA R5’s second win in Africa.
His debut win came earlier this year at the Mombasa Rally, the opening round of the Kenyan championship season, and after missing the podium in both subsequent rounds he and British co-driver Drew Sturrock were back to winning ways here.
Driving a FABIA R5 for the Multiple Racing Team, Baryan suffered no fewer than three punctures during the course of the rally. But with teammate and rival Tapio Laukkanen being forced to retire on stage 6, Baryan was still able to close out victory by a margin of 42 seconds from his closest rival.
2017 Cyprus Rally
Ole Christian Veiby’s busy season continued as he competed at the Aurskog-Høland Rally, the fifth round of the Norwegian Rally Championship. Driving alongside co-driver Stig Rune Skjærmoen in a Printsport Oy FABIA R5, Veiby finished on the podium in third place in what was his first drive at this event. Veiby had targeted the win and he was right in the mix at the top of the leaderboard until a puncture on stage 10 cost him around 25 seconds. In the end, he was 34 seconds adrift of the leader, but happy with the performance. “It’s been such a fantastic day, and the performances here are on the same level as in the WRC2,” said Ole Christian Veiby. “Being in a fight all day was so inspiring and it’s an amazing feeling to drive with maximum push all the way.”
At the Rally Žemaitija, the third round of the Lithuanian Rally Championship, there was a third place finish for Benediktas Vanagas / Agnė Vičkačkaitė-Lauciuvienė. In just their second drive in a FABIA R5, they finished almost 3 minutes clear of their closest rival to secure their second Lithuanian championship podium finish of the year.
There was another dominant performance from the ŠKODA Motorsport duo of Jan Kopecký / Pavel Dresler as they continued their 100% record in 2017 Czech Rally Championship with victory at the Rally Hustopeče, the fourth round of the season. The event also made up two rounds of the Slovak Rally Championship (each leg was a round). In that championship, Martin Koči and co-driver Filip Schovánek, in a FABIA R5 for the Styllex Motorsport s.r.o. team, were unlucky not to emerge with maximum points. They led the Slovak standings in the first leg until a puncture on the final stage of the day saw them fall back to third. Then on the second leg, they were again in the lead before brutal rain on Koči’s run in the last stage again cost him time as he ended up finishing second. Fellow FABIA R5 crew Grzegorz Grzyb / Jakub Wróbel, driving for the Rufa Sport team, finished second in the Slovak standings on the first leg and third on the second leg, which means that with three rallies to go, Koči sits second in the championship standings on 126 points (eight points behind leader Pavel Valoušek) while Grzyb is third on 118 points.
At the Rally di Alba - Memorial Silvio Stroppiana, which was a round of the Italian Rally Cup as well as the Italian Regional Championship (Zone 1) event, Marco Colombi / Angelica Rivoir finished first in the R5 class and second overall. They were just 17.1 seconds behind the overall winner Alessandro Gino, who was driving a WRC-category car.
In the French Rally Cup, at the Rallye National des Bornes, there was another victory for Team FJ as Ludovic Gal / Olivier Belot took victory in their FABIA R5 by a margin of 53.7 seconds. Jérémy Cretien / Lilian Jacquemoud finished fourth overall in their FABIA R5.
