From the duo waited two Alekseev win at the starting stage of ERC (European Rally Championship) — European Rally Championship. This race was to be held in Latvia on the well know riders from St. Petersburg special stages. However, the organizers of Rally Liepaja were forced to postpone the race in September due to the unusually warm weather, which resulted in snow and ice cover the route simply melted away.
In connection with this start to the season in the European Championship held in the Canary Islands. It is here at the weekend passed Rally Islas Canarias — El Corte Ingles.
In the past, winning the legendary race asphalt scored Carlos Sainz, Didier Auriol, Jan Kopecký, Juho Hänninen, Gilles Panizzi, Piero and Fabrizio Liatti Tabaton.
At first, the participants of the Spanish stage ERC 2016 was quite traditional — several regular participants in the series and the crews from Spain. But at the last moment added to the list of strong stellar name — in the race I decided to take part pilot factory team Ford M-Sport Mads Ostberg.
The Norwegian took the bat — he won the first special stage took place — Lukyanyuk though he lost only one tenth of a second. It was the only extra won by Mads for the entire race, but it was enough to take the lead and hold it until the seventh SS.
The reason for this was the better choice of rubber — at the beginning of the race main rivals Ostberg Lukyanyuk and reigning European champion Cajetan Kaetanovich mistake with the choice of rubber. Most of all suffered from this Russian — Alexei finished third in the section just 14 seconds behind the leader.
The second section was not the best — rain confused the cards to participants and as a result Lukyanyuk finished the first day in 23 seconds behind first place occupied Kaetanovich — at this point Ostberg had already left the race, crashing into a rock due to problems with the brakes.
But on the second day it was the turn Kaetanovicha mistaken with a choice of rubber — and it cost him the victory. The Pole won the first special stage of the day, increasing its lead over the Russian duo to 29 seconds, but at the next special stage, he finished with only 19 resulted in more than half a minute behind Lukyanyuk.
Dopom later — 14 times and lost another 35 seconds. Thus in one section to the finish Alex in the lead, ahead of Cayetano to 37 seconds. Now the Russian citizen was to bring the case to win — and he did!
Having Kaetanovichu victory on SS11 Alexei Lukyanyuk won the final two dopa and won the first stage of the European Rally Championship, taking the lead in the standings.
Cajetan Kaetanovich finished second 33 seconds behind the Russians. Finished third local racer Luis Monzon — its backlog from the winner was almost two minutes.
The next stage of ERC will be held in early April in Ireland — there will pass an asphalt Rally Circuit of Ireland.
Photo: Lina Arnautova / www.alexeylukyanuk.com, www.fiaerc.com
