Jan Kopecký in the Lead after 1st Leg of Rally Bohemia

Press Release No. 22

The crew of ŠKODA Motorsport Team, Jan Kopecký – Pavel Dresler, is in the lead of the 42nd Rally Bohemia after the first leg. The second place belongs to the crew Václav Pech – Petr Uhel. After the defect of Esapekka Lappi in the sixth special stage, Jan Dohnal – Jakub Venclík moved to the third place.

Jan Kopecký with Škoda Fabia R5 of ŠKODA Motorsport Team is holding the lead in Rally Bohemia fast in his hands after the first leg, when he managed to win all the special stages of the evening competition section. His Finnish team colleague Esapekka Lappi, unfortunately, lost more than two minutes after a tyre defect in SS 6 Šumburk and subsequent problems, and he dropped to the seventh place.

Thanks to that, Václav Pech – Petr Uhel got to the second place losing more than half a minute to Jan Kopecký. The bronze place belongs to the fast driving Jan Dohnal in Ford Focus RS WRC. The fourth place belongs to Škoda Fabia S2000 of Pavel Valoušek – Veronika Havelková. Štěpán Vojtěch with Michal Ernst in Peugeot 206 WRC have reached the fifth place before Roman Odložilík and Martin Tureček, who were also affected by a tyre defect in special stage Šumburk. The eighth place has been still kept by the crew Jan Sýkora – Štěpán Palivec.

Below you can find the comments of the leading pilots from the night service centre. With what feelings are they going to enter tomorrow’s second leg?

Jan Kopecký, Škoda Fabia R5: “We are sticking to our speed all the time while our colleague may have started running a risk and got out of the track twice, once being quite lucky. It is a school of racing on asphalt for him, I can understand it – when I was younger, I also drove at full blast all the time. Today, I think more when driving, taking into consideration the situation in the Czech championship as well. However, we want to leave Venca Pech behind us even tomorrow, we will try to win even the second leg within the Czech Rally Championship. And that we could reach hattrick thanks to it in the shape of three first places at Rally Bohemia? We don’t think about such things now.”

Esapekka Lapii, Škoda Fabia R5: “We had a defect in the middle special stage of the section, we caught the bank with the rear part and damaged the rim. We had to exchange the tyre and then we also had a problem with a silencer at the last stage. We may have been too tight in this place, but we have not had the exact schedule yet. We are learning on asphalt.”

Václav Pech, Mini John Cooper S2000: “The second section was similar to the first one for us – we are driving at our limits, we can’t speed up, despite that we can’t catch up with Honza…”

Tomorrow 42nd Rally Bohemia is going on with its second leg where the crews will be tested in special stages in the region of Mladá Boleslav. The first crews of the Czech Rally Championship will be welcomed in the finish in the Staroměstské náměstí (Old Town Square) in Mladá Boleslav on Sunday at 2:35 p.m.

All the information on this year Rally Bohemia can be found on the official competition website www.rallybohemia.cz. The traditional general partner of Rally Bohemia is ŠKODA AUTO.

Rally Bohemia can be also found at social network.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/rallybohemia
Twitter: twitter.com/RallyBohemia
Youtube: www.youtube.com/user/RallyBohemia
Instagram: instagram.com/rallybohemia

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2015-07-11 [160]