Czech rally news

[Mirek]

Kopecky wins on Fabia's debut. I suppose any other result would have been a surprise but I think Skoda will be happy with this. 0.63s/km quicker than Bouffier is a good result wherever it is. Kopecky is a quick but cautious driver so i suspect he didn't drive it any harder than he had to.

You should have been at one of the last downhill corners on SS1 in second lap. Kopecký had there a moment at around 170-180 km/h

Anyway it was a nice rally for me. Great weather and good organization as well. Pity we lost Pech and Dohnal so early but that's life and in case of Dohnal it was quite expectable as his Focus was prepared very-last minute and he wasn't even able to start on shakedown. I was hoping that Pech would start the second leg to fight for bonus points but then I met him spectating on the first morning stage. Landa's Fabia WRC made only less than one lap of the SS1 before it wasn't able to climb a small hill due to broken clutch (I saw that from distance)...

Anyway what I saw? Kopecký driving very spectacular way with a really nice and powerful car. Pech driving clean and very precise (no wonder as Šumava is his home rally). Bouffier was driving really fast and aggressive but I think that the car isn't fast enough. Valoušek finally in a good rhytm. It was a long time I saw him driving really fast. His S2000 also had probably the shortest gearbox of all and he was often in the limiter. Odložilík in my opinion shall go back to R5. I don't think he would be slower with it. Anyway at least the Impreza WRC made the whole rally unlike most of the old WRC cars. Sýkora was spectacular and fast but sometimes he looked hesitant in some long corners doing braking in them etc. Černý looked like he was driving quite safe. He was clean and I haven't seen any sign of overdriving from him. His major time loss came from both runs of Koráb stage (Buková-Kdyně). Somehow it didn't go well for him there and I have no idea why. Anyway in the S2000 fight Valoušek was pushing a lot more. I would like to mention two names which both unfortunately aren't in the final results - it was Kopáček and Semerád senior. The two were a lot faster than any other gr.N drivers. Semerád retired quite early but Kopáček was in the fight for 7th place till some strange exclusion. In this moment I don't know what happened, maybe he missed some time control...

I shall mention also the historic ERC rally but I have to admit I saw them only on the first stage as we were following the modern rally. One of the reasons is that this year's entry list of historics was quite weak. Moreover Navrátil, who looked fastest on shakedown didn't make it even through SS1 (blown engine). Anyway congratulations to our forum member Jeppe for a nice result. Unfortunately I wasn't able to meet him as when I was in service he wasn't there and vice versa...