It has been a successful start to the Rally Fafe Montelongo for Team MRF Tyres, taking a 1-2 on the 3.3km Shakedown stage. Emil Lindholm and Mikael Korhonen led the charge in his Skoda Fabia Rally2 evo, taking the fastest time on his third of his three runs.
Craig Breen and Paul Nagle went on four runs in their Hyundai i20 R5, setting their best time on their third run. The weather was a lottery with rain and wind sweeping across the stage, making the roads unpredictable.
From wet to dry and everything in between, the driver had to display a degree of caution while searching for grip and time.
MRF Tyres are continuing the development process in the European Rally Championship and the performance of the tyres under the wet and cold conditions is encouraging. Tyre choice will be an important factor to succeed on the roads in northern Portugal with changeable weather being expected through the weekend.
Saturday’s action gets underway at 9:00am local time (13:30 in India). Three loops of three stages will be run with a total distance of 95.79km. The starting order will be run to championship order with Breen/Nagle starting third and Lindholm/Korhonen starting fifth.
Quotes
Emil Lindholm (Driver, Skoda Fabia Rally2 evo) 1st
“It was definitely tricky! Particularly on the first pass we didn’t know where it was going to be wet and dry. The tyres worked very well and offered predictability on the roads.” “The roads were getting better even if we did have a shower between our second and third run. We ran a different tyre on the third run where we gained our best time.” “We have a good feeling now and the trick is to predict the weather we are going to have. We seem to have a strong package in the rain.”
Craig Breen (Driver, Hyundai i20 R5) 2nd
“It was tricky conditions in the shakedown today. We set the car up for dry in the start and made some changes as we went through.” “The tyre selection will be a key point this weekend with the changeable conditions.” “We are trying to develop the tyre more and more. We haven’t done a lot of running in the wet and on tarmac so far so we have to get data on that.”
