An incredible eight ŠKODA Fabia S2000s head the field at the end of the opening leg of the Barum Czech Rally Zlín, as the local manufacturer dominates its round of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge.
Juho Hänninen, Jan Kopecký and Andreas Mikkelsen are the top three drivers, having mastered today’s slippery conditions better than most.
The fab Fabia trio have been very close all day, although Andreas certainly doesn’t appear to like the 11.9 mile (19.18km) Tesák test, as the ŠKODA UK Motorsport driver dropped 33.4 seconds to leader Hänninen over the two runs (SS7/9) – most during the slippery final section, which had shinny black Tarmac and all the grip properties of ice.
“The performance has been good and Ola and I feel happy with the job that we’ve done, but there is this one stage I’ve struggled with. We tried a new set-up on our Fabia S2000 today and it works really well when the road is twisty and narrow, but when it’s fast and the car is leaning at high speed it’s not so good. If you take that stage away we’d be leading the rally!
“We will make some changes tonight to the car and go out tomorrow on a different set-up. There are six really fast and long stages tomorrow, so everything is possible.”
source: Skoda Official Website
