Rally Catalunya: Skoda leg two summary
Jan Kopecky heads the Skoda Motorsport World Rally Team drivers in a points-scoring eighth place after day two of the Catalunya-Costa Daurada Rally. Despite a failing gearbox on the days final stage Armin Schwarz finished the leg 11th and remains ...
Jan Kopecky heads the Skoda Motorsport World Rally Team drivers in a points-scoring eighth place after day two of the Catalunya-Costa Daurada Rally.
Despite a failing gearbox on the days final stage Armin Schwarz finished the leg 11th and remains poised to score manufacturers championship points.
Jan set 10th fastest time with the Fabia WRC 05 on todays second stage to move into 12th place before moving up to 10th place on the next stage. Seventh fastest on SS10 took him into ninth overall and he consolidated that position with sixth fastest time on SS11. Finally he set another seventh fastest time on the days last stage to go eighth and will start tomorrow just seven seconds behind Antony Warmbold.
Alex Bengue was forced to retire from a points position with gearbox failure on the second of todays six stages. He had set a good time on the days opening stage before spectator problems caused it to be cancelled but stopped 10kms into the next, unable to select gears. He will not restart tomorrow.
Tomorrow's final leg features just three stages (totalling 66.08kms) to the north west of Salou. The rally finishes in Salou at 1330 CET.
Jan Kopecký:
It was a better day today and we set some good times but it was really tough this morning. Some stages were dry
at the start and the finish but wet in the middle. When we got the tyre choice right everything felt fine and I could push hard
with confidence. Tomorrow will be interesting!
Armin Schwarz:
I think weve tried everything to find the cause of the handling problems weve been having on these two events.
The gearbox lost a couple of gears and that made both the final stage and the uphill drive into the service area very
difficult.
Alex Bengue:
Everything seemed OK for the first 10kms but then I tried to change from fourth to fifth and nothing happened. The
engine revs went high but there was no chance to find a gear, either with the automatic system or the manual one. Its very
disappointing.
Martin Muehlmeier (Head of Skoda Motorsport):
Obviously it was disappointing to lose Alex today as technical failures have
been quite rare on our car in recent events. Jan has driven very well today and with Armin in the points as well we must be
optimistic for tomorrows final leg.
-skoda-
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
SCORE making its Licensing Expo debut at Motorsports Café
Final entry list for Baja 500
Robby Gordon the fast qualifier for Baja 500
Lamborghini not concerned over Le Mans reliability despite rain-interrupted test
The F1 hero-to-zero dividing line that has never been so thin
The implications of F1's vote on a new points structure
Alonso laments "game of who can run less" in F1 sprint practice
The eight minutes of madness that saw Ogier strike in Croatia
How Rovanpera showed his class above his WRC rivals in Kenya
How a new 'old' challenge is capturing the spirit of British rallying lore
How Lappi survived Swedish snow carnage to snap his lengthy WRC drought
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments