Jan Kopecky - Wins | JannerRallye - 2013 | ERC - Round 1

JannerRallye, Austria the first round of ERC - 2013, started its second and final leg [2] of the rally today morning as scheduled. The weather conditions were nothing better to yesterday, with clouds and possible rains and temperatures hovering around 6°C and some hints that there could be some ice on the roads too. The closed stages were wet with rain water after a few & had a few patches of ice in some sections, as expected.

The leader board were looking mostly the same to the previous day's closing, and the start order was reversed. Everything looked normal with some minor offs by down order, and not until the rally leader Jan Kopecky hit a puncture on SS15 and so did Francios Delecour. The leaderboard changed dramatically when Jan slipped to 3rd, trailing the new leader, Bouffier, by nearly a minute and Delecour to 7th overall. JannerRallye seems predictable, but may not and things could go wrong if not cautious & sometimes luck could be the deciding factor. Both the experienced top level drivers were not sure how they contracted a flat

In the next two stages, Kopecky had a brilliant drive and trimmed the gap with the rally leader to just around 11s and moved to second overall at the end of SS17. With the final service of the competition underway, SS18 was the only standing challenge in the minds of the challengers, which was exactly 25k to the finish line.

The last SS, staged a bigger battle grounds in dark, foggy amidst rains, for the top place. Delecour admitted that he was plagued by wrong tire choices throughout the rally and said, he just wants to finish as better as he could and wanted the vital points for the overall championship. The top 3 is where the big battle was focused and Bouffier tried his best to keep his gifted position after Kopecky slipped down from a puncture, earlier today. But it was just not enough, as the young Czech went on with a thrilling battle to secure his lost position and claimed the top place in style, by just half a second. Baumschlager held on to his 3rd place finish, but was leading in the Austrian Championship. Fighting in the odd conditions and recovering nearly a minute of lost time in just around 75k's of competitive kms is just fantastic!! What a rally it was.. Awesome!

What we liked about the rally & the fans is the number of turn out, despite odd weather! Even in the dark & freezing cold and rains!! Bravo!!!