日: 2022年4月23日

Ott Tänak is firmly back in contention to win the Croatia Rally after he slashed Kalle Rovanperä’s lead by more than a minute during Saturday morning’s loop of four stages.

Tänak, the 2019 FIA World Rally champion, trailed the dominant Rovanperä by 1m23.3s overnight. After the cancellation of the opening test this morning, he ate into the over-cautious Finn’s advantage by 10s in the next special stage.

But the big turnaround came during the morning’s Platak test, close to Rijeka on the Adriatic coast. In contrast to the dry start to the day, the more westerly location brought pouring rain and thick fog as the roads snaked up to a ski resort and a large fan zone.

Tänak and Rovanperä were the only two frontrunners with Pirelli’s wet weather rubber on all four corners. While Tänak claimed the fastest time in his Hyundai i20 N Rally1, a front-left puncture on his rival’s Toyota GR Yaris meant he conceded 54.5s.

Estonian Tänak nibbled back a further 1.4s in the morning’s closing test to leave him only 16.8s adrift as crews returned to Zagreb for the mid-leg service. He acknowledged the weather in Platak was a real eye-opener.

“I guess in these conditions you don’t care about the time, you’re just happy to make it through,” he admitted. “It was like a different place in the world. On the small road there was quite a lot of standing water so you have quite a bit of aquaplaning.

“On the big road with visibility where you can only see the bonnet it was fast. But in the fast if you don’t know where to go, driving blind was quite a challenge as well.”

FIA World Rally Championship leader Rovanperä has plenty of time at service to think about how hard he would fight to repel Tänak in the afternoon’s re-run of the stages.

“Ott has been really fast today so I think it will be a tricky afternoon. Let’s see how the feeling is and how fast is the pace. It’s going to be important for us to score some points so we have to be a bit clever,” said the 21-year-old.

Craig Breen is 41.0s behind in third, despite overshooting a hairpin in the final test in his M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1.

The Irishman has 26.2sin hand over Thierry Neuville, whose weekend took another twist when his i20 N was pushed into service early this morning. A 10s penalty for leaving a minute late while issues were fixed added to his one-minute penalty handed out overnight for a speeding offence.

Neuville was fastest in SS12 and was 37.2s clear of fifth-placed Elfyn Evans, who had set the fastest time in the opening run aboard his Toyota GR Yaris prior to the stage being cancelled. Takamoto Katsuta rounded off the top six, but the Japanese driver was more than two minutes adrift of the Welshman after an overshoot.

Oliver Solberg was a strong fourth after leg one on his Croatia Rally debut. But the young Swede crashed his i20 N in the opening stage, which was later cancelled as rescue vehicles attended a fire at the rear of the car. 

WRC2 leader Yohan Rossel is seventh in the provisional order for the Citroën-powered PH Sport squad. Nikolay Gryazin is eighth in a Toksport WRT Škoda Fabia Rally2 Evo with Eric Camilli (Saintéloc Junior Team Citroën) and Kajetan Kajetanowicz (LOTOS Rally Team Škoda) completing the top 10 in third and fourth in WRC2 respectively. 

Finland’s Sami Pajari leads both WRC3 and the FIA Junior WRC Championship ranking. 

The second Croatia Rally to count for the FIA World Rally Championship continues at 15h16 CET with the second running of the 23.76-kilometre Kostanjevac – Petruš Vrh stage.

World Rally Championship

Rally CroatiaWRCSEASON 2022SportRallies1SportWorld Rally ChampionshipRalliesWRCSEASON 2022Rally Croatia01Saturday, April 23, 2022 – 2:35pmSaturday, April 23, 2022 – 2:35pm

Franco Colapinto converted pole position into his and Van Amersfoort Racing’s maiden FIA Formula 3 victory during a frantic Sprint Race at Imola.

Colapinto trailed fast-starting Caio Collet for much of the 20-lap Sprint Race but snatched first place on the final lap and subsequently had a clear route to victory after Collet tangled with Isack Hadjar moments later.

The clash between Collet and Hadjar promoted Victor Martins and Jak Crawford into the podium positions and their fierce duel was only settled on the dash to the line after 20 laps of close competition.

AS IT HAPPENED

Warm and sunny conditions greeted the field of 29 on Saturday morning after Free Practice and Qualifying was affected by rain through Friday, meaning for many it was their first taste of Imola on slick tyres.

As the five red lights went out Colapinto made the perfect getaway from pole position, but behind him Ido Cohen bogged down from his front-row spot to fifth, while Collet surged from fourth to second, picking off teammate Kush Maini. Collet remained glued to the rear of Colapinto and with the assistance of DRS breezed past his opponent along the pits straight on lap 4.

But Collet couldn’t shake off the advances of Colapinto while a couple of seconds behind it was Hadjar who was the driver on the move. Having gone around the outside of Cohen on lap 1 he dispatched Martins along the pit straight before working past Maini into the second chicane, moving into third spot.

Colapinto’s pursuit of Collet was halted when the Safety Car was deployed after Zak O’Sullivan spun out of seventh, and he was joined moments later in the same gravel trap by Josep Maria Martí. There was also an unwelcome development for Maini, who was issued a drive-through penalty for being out-of-position at the race start, removing him from fourth.

Racing resumed on lap 10 but the green flags were only out for a couple of minutes as Reece Ushijima and Federico Malvestiti clashed exiting the first chicane, necessitating the Safety Car once more. Shortly after the subsequent restart Arthur Leclerc went wide and ploughed through a DRS board, scattering polystyrene over the track surface, requiring the Virtual Safety Car while the debris was cleared.

Finally, there was a frenetic two-lap dash to the flag and Colapinto seized the initiative to sweep past Collet along the pit straight. The Brazilian was left vulnerable to the advances of the fast-charging Hadjar but the two cars interlocked on the approach to the first chicane. Collet was out while Hadjar relinquished positions after skating through the gravel.

As Colapinto greeted his jubilant Van Amersfoort mechanics, behind him Martins and Crawford crossed the line split by just 0.06s to grab second and third respectively. It capped a frantic duel between the pair, which had previously seen Crawford run through the gravel at the first chicane in his attempt to overhaul Martins.

Roman Staněk was a beneficiary of the late drama to move into fourth place, ahead of the delayed Hadjar, with Zane Maloney sixth, and Oliver Rasmussen seventh. Eighth went to Kaylen Frederick, Alexander Smolyar was ninth while Rafael Villagómez gained 10 spots from his starting position to round out the top 10.

KEY QUOTE – Franco Colapinto, Van Amersfoort Racing

“It’s the reverse grid, but it’s still a win, I’m happy. The pace was good, we had a good fight with Caio and it went our way. We had better tyres at the end of the race, and that was an issue in Bahrain, so I’m happy with that, as we improved our weakest parts. The team did an amazing job. I’m happy with the performance here, and let’s see what we can do tomorrow.”

THE CHAMPIONSHIP VIEW

With his runner-up position ART Grand Prix’ Martins moves onto 34 points, extending his advantage in the Drivers’ Championship over PREMA Racing’s Arthur Leclerc – who was a non-scorer in the Sprint Race – to 10 points. Sprint Race winner Colapinto holds third, on 22 points, ahead of Oliver Bearman on 17 and Hadjar on 16.

ART Grand Prix leads the Teams’ Championship on 63 points, ahead of PREMA Racing on 55, with Trident Motorsport on 26, ahead of Hitech Grand Prix and Van Amersfoort on 23.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Maloney and Staněk will form an all-Trident front-row for the Feature Race, which is scheduled to get underway on Sunday at 8:50am local time.

FIA Formula 3 Championship

F3Formula 3F3SEASON 2022SportCircuit1SportFIA Formula 3 ChampionshipCircuitF3SEASON 2022F3Formula 300Saturday, April 23, 2022 – 12:51pmSaturday, April 23, 2022 – 12:51pm