Przygonski sets up nail-biting finish in Rally Kazakhstan
Aktau City, Kazakhstan: The fastest time on the penultimate 298.04km special stage by FIA World Cup leader Jakub Przygonski has set up the prospect of a nail-biting finale to Rally Kazakhstan.
The Pole and Belgian navigator Tom Colsoul guided their X-raid MINI John Cooper Works Rally to a time of 2hrs 48min 19sec on the short timed section to the north of Aktau City on Friday but, more importantly, they beat team-mate Yazeed Al-Rajhi by 6min 26sec. They now trail the Saudi Arabian driver – who suffered navigational issues from opening the stage – by just 2min 12sec heading into a MINI showdown by the Caspian Sea on Saturday.
The Russian duo of Vladimir Vasilyev and Konstantin Zhiltsov dropped over five minutes to the stage winner and could well have lost their chance of outright victory in a MINI Cooper Countryman. They slipped to third overall but actually closed the gap on leader Al-Rajhi from 8min 05sec to 6min 45sec. But the final stage is short by Kazakh standards and there will be limited opportunities to make up that kind of time difference.
Czech driver Martin Prokop delivered another solid stage in his Ford F-150 Evo to remain in fourth overall, while Frenchman Luc Alphand bounced back from four days of niggles to set the second quickest time in X-raid’s MINI Buggy and consolidated fifth position.
G-Force driver Boris Gadasin and England’s Harry Hunt (PH Sport Peugeot 3008 DKR) delivered impressive stage performances to record the third and fourth fastest times and hold sixth and eighth in the overall rankings.
Yerden Shagirov bounced back to form with the eighth fastest time, as Viktor Khoroshavtsev (MINI John Cooper Works Rally) regained the seventh position at the expense of Russia’s Andrey Rudskoy, who fell to ninth overall but remained well clear of 10th-placed Denis Krotov, Germany’s Jürgen Schröder in 11th and Shagirov (12th).
Kirill Chernenkov dropped 58 minutes to Qatar’s Adel Abdulla on the fourth stage but the Kazakh extended his lead over Russia’s Konstantin Ivanov to 43min 49sec before the start of stage five in the T2 category. OFF-ROAD Kazakhstan’s Marat Abykayev retained a comfortable third position after Abdulla incurred further time penalties.
But Chernenkov lost his chance of winning the T2 category when he incurred 100 hours of time penalties on Friday and that handed a great chance to Ivanov and Abykayev. Adel Abdulla continued his charge and set a third successive fastest time, as Ivanov completed the special 8min 32sec behind the Qatari to take a lead over Abykayev of 38min 35sec into the last day.
T3 overnight leader Santiago Navarro extended his lead over Spaniard José Pena Campo to 33min 10sec with the fastest time, as Kazakh Dmitry Pitulov and Frenchman Patrice Garrouste remained entrenched in third and fourth places with hefty time penalties.
Sergey Kupriyanov cruised through the fifth stage and remains on course for the National Rally win in his Team Kamaz Masters truck after Russian team-mate and the day’s stage winner Andrey Karginov suffered problems on day four and incurred 100 hours of time penalties.
