ERC: Circuit of Ireland / Rally review
Anti-climax
After an exciting opening day the stage was set for a great fight for victory
between Lappi and Breen. Unfortunately the outcome was decided rather
sooner than later. A sensor-fault on the car caused an off for Craig Breen
on the very first stage of the day. Breen was unable to continue effectively
handing victory to Lappi. The main task for the young Finn from then on
was to bring the car home safely as he had a lead of well over one and a
half minute.
More trouble
Behind the leading duo three drivers were in the mix to claim the final
podium spot. Two locals in the form of Barrable and Moffet tried to fight of
the German challenge of Sepp Wiegand. It was soon down to one Irishman to defend home honors though als Moffet suffered a pressure fault
on the second stage of the day, ending his rally. Wiegand felt confident
of his chances “The roads today are not so specialist as yesterday. In
Germany you don’t have such crests – on the roads the crests are away.
Today is more easy to drive and we can have a little push.”
Inching closer
Barrabele opened the fight to Wiegand on the opening stage of the day,
adding six seconds to his. Throughout the day though Wiegand mounted
his challenge, setting four fastest stage times in the process. Barrable
wasn’t going to go away without a fight and countered with very quick
times as well. Wiegand had the edge, but Barrable held on to a lead. After Barrable extended his lead to fifteen seconds on the opening stage,
Wiegand beat Barrable on all following stages by slender advantages
inching closer to within seven seconds of Wiegand. At that point Barrable
finally faltered under the pressure and went off the road. “The tyres started to go off a little bit and we exited the stage left through a gate, which
thankfully had already been opened by a competitor on the previous run
of that stage.” Luckily surviving that incident without more than a ten second time loss Barrable decided to settle for third with just the final stage
to go. This allowed Wiegand to claim his well-deserved second place
“Today was more easy to find a better rhythm and I am really happy with
second place and to be on the podium with ‘EP’ (Esapekka Lapp, ed.). It’s
really nice for the team and a really good result for us.”
35/42
Like teammate Abbring, Breen did not make it to the end after a strong start. After a long and hard fight with Sepp Wiegand, Robert Barrable settled for third.