Mentos Ascania Racing successfully finished Rally de Portugal
The last day of Rally de Portugal has shorter distance than previous days - just four SS and 105 km. But they did decide the final results of this stage of the P-WRC championship. Mentos Ascania Racing crew, Valeriy Gorban - Sergey Larens became the best of Ukrainian crews, they got the 5th position. Oleksandr Saliuk and Pavel Cherepin had technical problems yesterday and despite this fact they could finish the race at the 6th place, even with a penalty. Aleksey Kikireshko and Vadim Chernega reached the finish of this incredible difficult race at the 11th position.
Oleksandr Saliuk stopped the race on Saturday and on Sunday Valeriy Gorban became "responsible" for the best team result. The 1st Sunday SS was not very successful - Gorban and Larens became only the 12th. It was quite dangerous: the nearest pursuer of Gorban was Nikolas Fuchs - the fast driver from Peru. Trough the battle between Ukraine and Peru didn't take place: Fuchs stopped the race at SS14.
So Gorban could enjoy his 5th place! Soon Valeriy Gorban even moved to the 4th position, but he couldn't keep this high result till the finish - at the last SS Valeriy lost four seconds and got the 5th place again.
Oleksandr Saliuk and Pavel Cherepin started the day in good pace and won two SS on Sunday! Unfortunately he got the 10 min penalty on Saturday and Oleksandr Saliuk got just the 6th place. Rally de Portugal was quite unstable for the Ukrainian champion, but he demonstrated the good potential and turned Mentos Ascania Racing to the possible competitor for the top-five of the P-WRC.
Aleksey Kikireshko and Vadim Chernega reached the finish at the 11th position. "It was incredible, - says Aleksey . - The race was very interesting and difficult, but I learned much from it".
Mentos Ascania Racing had good result in Rally de Portugal and completed the team's program - to get into the top-five. Now Valeriy Gorban takes the 3rd position in the total ranking of the P-WRC 2011 with 22 points.
-source: ascania racing
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