Kalle Rovanperä won the most dramatic Rally Bohemia of recent years
The second leg of Rally Bohemia was marked by a thrilling battle between the pilots of the ŠKODA Motorsport factory team. Kalle Rovanperä and Jan Kopecký also had almost identical times in the second leg, and the result was given by the penultimate special stage Radostín, where Rovanperä was eleven seconds faster than Kopecký. With this double victory, the ŠKODA brand has achieved its tenth victory in a row.
Right after the first special stage of the second leg, Kalle Rovanperä overtook Jan Černý. He was followed by Jan Kopecký after the second special stage. Until the penultimate stage of the competition, Rovanpera was only able to win two seconds on Kopecky, raising his morning lead of five and a half to seven and a half seconds. The penultimate stage was the longest section of the competition, almost 22 kilometers long stage Radostín. It was raining heavily during the passage of the starting field and Jan Kopecký, according to his statement, stopped fighting with Kalle Rovanpera and concentrated on maintaining the top position in the Czech Rally Championship classification, where Rovanpera is not scoring. Because of this, he did not want to undergo en excessive risk in heavy rain on intermedia tires. The crew of Kalle Rovanpera / Jonne Halttunen won in the battle of two Škoda Fabia R5 evo cars before Jan Kopecký / Pavel Dresler by less than twenty seconds and the ŠKODA Motorsport team succeeded in winning the “double”. Jan Černý and Petr Černohorský of Mogul Auto Šídlo Škoda team finished third after a nice and reliable performance. The fourth place confirmed the role of dark horses of by the mixed Austrian crew of Simon Wagner / Anne Katharina Stein on another Škoda Fabia R5. Thus the first four positions of this year’s Rally Bohemia belong to the Škoda brand.
Vojtěch Štajf and Veronika Havelková with Volkswagen Polo R5 have had a very successful race. After constant performance they finished fifth and also third in the absolute standings of Czech Championship. Miroslav Jakeš / Petr Machů on Škoda Fabia R5 finished sixth. Ones, who will not be remembering this year’s Rally Bohemia in a good way, are Václav Pech / Petr Uhel. After a series of four second places in the past years, they ended up seventh this year when Václav Pech damaged the wheel of his Ford Fiesta R5 on Sunday morning and lost more than two minutes. Demanding stage Radostín then became fatal for him.
The second leg of Rally Bohemia has proved its difficulty and trickiness since its start. In the morning section, after an accident, the fourth Filip Mareš withdrew, when he ended up in the stream bed under the track of the Chloudov special stage. Then Jan Dohnal with his Ford Focus WRC 06 crashed from the same position to the Radostín SS and even before a column on the new Kvítkovice SS ended Karel Trojan’s attendance in the competition. Partial loser, albeit quite satisfied in the finish, was also “a native” Štěpán Vojtěch, who was deposed from the eighth place to eleventh due to unfuctional turbo on Radostín stage.
The situation in the classification of 2WD cars with one driven axle was also dramatized on the key penultimate Radostín stage. Until then, safely leading Petr Semerád / Jiří Hlávka on Opel Adam R2 made a mistake and found themselves off the track for a minute, so Václav Stejskal jr. / Stanislav Viktora jr. on Renault Clio R3T won.
In class 3 production cars Martin Šikl won with Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX and Petr Nešetřil / Jiří Černoch conquered attractive class 4 with Porsche 997 GT3.
Detailed results of all parts of Rally Bohemia 2019 can be found at www.rallybohemia.cz. There is also an archive of the internet radio Rally Bohemia with interviews with pilots from the course of the race. You can also watch more information and get interesting facts about the competition on social networks. The traditional general partner of the competition is car company ŠKODA AUTO.
Rally Bohemia can be found on these accounts on social networks:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/rallybohemia
Youtube: www.youtube.com/user/RallyBohemia
Instagram: www.instagram.com/rallybohemia
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2019-07-14 [249]
