News

Brynildsen extends his P-WRC lead

24-Oct-2009

Eyvind Brynildsen has emerged from some of the most challenging conditions of the season to remain out front as leader of the Production Car World Rally Championship on Rally GB.

The rain has lashed the morning’s three stages, but the Norwegian remains on course to take a debut Production win in the Skoda Fabia S2000. Brynildsen was forced to give best to returning Swede Patrik Flodin on the first two stages of the day. Flodin retired from day one after taking a wheel off his Subaru, but he bounced back to offer a fine display of driving through the torrential rain of the morning.

Brynildsen was unconcerned by the pace of the Subaru and set about further building his lead at the front of the field. The Skoda driver’s cause was helped by a problem for his fellow Fabia driver Patrik Sandell. The Sandell Skoda went off the road in the third stage after being slowed by a steering fault on his car through the first two.

Brynildsen said: “It was really difficult this morning. There was no rhythm, it was hard to do anything. The conditions were not so nice. In the third stage, it was a bit more fun, but still not easy. I’m not pushing so hard now, I don’t have to - I have a good lead and want to keep it.”

Sandell’s powersteering problems caused him a more significant problem halfway through the final stage of the morning. “I went down a bank and I couldn’t get the car back for a long time,” he said. “We dropped 16 minutes getting the car out, it’s been a very difficult morning driving with the steering problem.”

Courtesy of those troubles in the Skoda, Prokop’s Mitsubishi moved back into second spot on the first run through Crychan, but the recently crowned Junior champion was enjoying his time in Wales. “It was crazy this morning,” he said. “We were lucky to come through there without any problems. I couldn’t believe some of the conditions. The rain has made it very slippery, but I like it. There were a lot of people close to the road in the last stage - I think this was because of Patrik [Sandell] stopping.”

Sandell stopping had also moved Toshi Arai up a place - and on to a provisional Production podium. The Subaru driver was happier with third, but not so happy at being three minutes off the back of the leader. “I wasn’t so fast through the last stage this morning, maybe I was a bit scared,” he said. “I couldn’t see at times this morning, the weather was so bad.”

Pirelli Star Driver Martin Semerad was revelling in the tough conditions and running in his strongest position all season. The Mitsubishi man was fourth after the first Saturday loop.

[Source: WRC News]