BP-Ford World Rally team driver Roman Kresta matched his career best
result when he and co-driver Jan Tomanek finished sixth on Germany's OMV
ADAC Rallye today. The Czech duo enjoyed a thrilling final day battle
with Gigi Galli on this 11th round of the FIA World Rally Championship.
The result was in doubt until the final few kilometres of the 355.40km
event when Kresta's Ford Focus RS World Rally Car was edged out of fifth
by his Italian rival.
Dani Solà and Xavier Amigo finished 12th in a privately-entered Focus RS
after losing more than eight minutes when they went off the road this
morning. Toni Gardemeister and Jakke Honkanen, driving another BP-Ford
Focus RS, climbed to 17th after yesterday's time loss.
The three-day all-asphalt rally was based near Trier, Germany's oldest
city, in the south-west of the country. The opening two days' action
covered narrow but fast speed tests in the Mosel vineyards and the
constantly changing surfaces of the Baumholder military land, more
commonly used by US soldiers for tank training. Today's competition was
based on more traditional asphalt roads in the Saarland region.
Despite losing 50 seconds when spinning off the road yesterday, Kresta
began the morning 2.4sec ahead of Galli. The duo fought for every tenth
of a second on the opening loop of three special stages, after which
Kresta returned to service just 0.6sec ahead of Galli. The battle
continued on the final three stages but Galli edged ahead to finish
8.7sec clear.
"I could have driven faster but that would have meant taking risks, and
I didn't want to do that," said Kresta. "It's better to finish sixth
than not at all. I really wanted the points and this is a good result
for me and the BP-Ford team. The battle with Gigi was good for the
spectators to watch but not so easy for me!
"I held fourth on the first day and I think that if I had not made any
mistakes I could have finished there. The Focus has been perfect for all
three days and the only things that have gone wrong were my fault. I had
a good test before the rally and that helped me a lot," added Kresta,
who moved up to eighth in the drivers' standings. The result matched his
sixth place finishes in Cyprus and Sardinia earlier in the season.
Spaniards Solà and Amigo were eighth overnight in a privately-entered
Focus RS, having been as high as fifth yesterday afternoon. However,
they dropped to 13th after going off the road on the second stage this
morning and losing more than eight minutes. "Going into a left corner, I
went slightly off the road," said Solà. "I tried to correct it but ended
up in a field. I couldn't see where to go because the grass was long and
in trying to get back onto the road I drove into a ditch. It took a long
time to get out again.
"I tried a stiffer roll bar on the car but that was a mistake because I
had a lot of understeer and didn't have a good feeling. It's a shame I
tried that because that's why I ended up in the field. My pre-event plan
was to use this rally as a test for future rounds. From that view it has
been a good weekend. I've improved my speed and learned a lot about the
car on asphalt, but it hasn't been easy. The team has worked well with
me to set up the car in the way I want," he added.>
Gardemeister climbed from 23rd to 17th today, the Finn using the final
leg as a test session after losing more than 20 minutes yesterday with
an electrical problem. "It was a disappointing weekend for me," said the
30-year-old Finn. "It was difficult to fight for good times and then
the problem cost me a lot more time. I have tested tyre and suspension
set-up today so the data we have gathered from that has been useful. I'm
pleased I made it to the finish, but I wanted a good result here and
that didn't happen."
News from our Rivals
Sebastien Loeb (Citroen) scored his eighth victory of the season and
his fourth consecutive German success, cruising through the final day
to beat team-mate Francois Duval by 37.4sec. The Frenchman extended his
championship lead to 32 points and the 1-2 result lifted the French
team back into the lead of the manufacturers' series. Team-mates Marcus
Gronholm and Markko Martin (both Peugeot) were similarly untroubled en
route to third and fourth. Behind the Galli and Kresta battle, Petter
Solberg (Subaru) climbed back into the points following yesterday's
gear selection troubles by finishing seventh. His cause was helped
when team-mate Stephane Sarrazin drove the final three stages with a
broken front right driveshaft. However, the Frenchman claimed the final
drivers' and manufacturers' point in eighth. Jan Kopecky (Skoda) was the
only major retirement today when he crashed out of ninth and ripped the
rear left wheel from his car on the third stage this morning.
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