Rally Russia 2008 Day One Results and Hanninen leads in the Peugeot 207 super 2000

Posted by Scott Coursey 10 July, 2008

4-etapas Jan Kopecky completes Rally Russia 2008 shakedown

Rally Russia started today with four Special Stages near the city of Vyborg. It was Juha Hanninen (207) who set the pace taking fastest time on three of the stages on his first ever run in a S2000 car. Anton Alen (Punto) had been his closest pursuer but a double puncture on SS4 saw him lose 55s and drop to 7th.

Hanninen's comments about leading

"It's been a big surprise for me," said Hanninen, who only completed 60 kilometres of testing in his Peugeot 207 S2000 prior to the start of Rally Russia.

"I expected Anton Alen to be very fast here, but actually I did not expect to be in front of him."

he admitted.

"I tried to stay out of trouble but I often found myself in the wrong gear, for example, which meant that I wasn't getting a lot of traction out of the corners," Hanninen explained. "The handling of the Peugeot is very good, but I think it takes a bit of time to know how to drive it properly."

"This type of car is a lot of fun," said Hanninen, who now has a 21-second lead over Giandomenico Basso. "I'm looking forward to tomorrow's stages, when I will know it a little bit better."

Hanninen leads in the Kronos 207 previously driven by Snijers and Campos

N1s_487606028a9b4.jpg picture by C4B

Basso (Punto) is having a steady run in second while Kopecky (207) is third and probably glad he made the event. Novikov ( Subaru N12) is doing well in fourth (top Gp N production car) and reckoned before the rally that he could win as was leading last year when he was only 16 years old. Vouilloz and Loix (207's) are fifth and sixth and doing alright despite not being on their favoured surface, Loix was actually quickest on SS2.

A good battle rages between the top two wheel drive crews with Wilks ( Civic R3) heading Meeke (Clio R3) by 23s and SJ-Joseph (C2R2 Max) by 26s. Meeke though has had to contend with two punctures on SS3 and had to drive SS4 with a rear puncture as only had one spare wheel also suffered a broken sump guard.

http://krismeeke.blogspot.com/

Casualties include Sola (Punto) who retired with engine trouble on SS3 and Auriol (Punto) is 29th and was reported to be in big problems, he hit a large stone which damaged the sus pension. Tirabassi (207) is down in 11th after suffering clutch problems.

Auriol meets the rock, image from the official site

Top Twenty Results Day One

1		11	Juho HANNINEN Mikko MARKKULA	N4	1	00:28:30,2	::*, (::*,)
2	1	3	Giandomenico BASSO Mitia DOTTA	N4	2	00:28:51,7	00:00:21,5 (00:00:21,5)
3	1	4	Jan KOPECKY Petr STARY	N4	3	00:28:58,8	00:00:28,6 (00:00:07,1)
4	1	12	Evgeny NOVIKOV Dale MOSCATT	N4	4	00:29:07,5	00:00:37,3 (00:00:08,7)
5	1	2	Nicolas VOUILLOZ Nicolas KLINGER	N4	5	00:29:08,2	00:00:38,0 (00:00:00,7)
6	1	5	Freddy LOIX Robin BUYSMANS	N4	6	00:29:09,4	00:00:39,2 (00:00:01,2)
7	5	8	Anton ALEN Timo ALANNE	N4	7	00:29:38,8	00:01:08,6 (00:00:29,4)
8		15	Andrey ZHIGUNOV Igor TER-OGANESIANTS	N4	8	00:29:42,6	00:01:12,4 (00:00:03,8)
9		16	Aleksandr ZHELUDOV Irina KOLOMEYTZEVA	N4	9	00:29:48,4	00:01:18,2 (00:00:05,8)
10	2	10	Evgeniy VERTUNOV Georgy TROSHKIN	N4	10	00:30:03,0	00:01:32,8 (00:00:14,6)
11	1	14	Brice TIRABASSI Fabrice GORDON	N4	11	00:30:05,5	00:01:35,3 (00:00:02,5)
12	2	22	Boris ZIMIN Sergey GRUDINA	N4	12	00:30:12,3	00:01:42,1 (00:00:06,8)
13		7	Guy WILKS David MOYNIHAN	A7	1	00:30:13,1	00:01:42,9 (00:00:00,8)
14	3	23	Alexander GAVRILOV Anton ZINOVIEV	N4	13	00:30:33,5	00:02:03,3 (00:00:20,4)
15	1	18	Kris MEEKE Paul NAGLE	A7	2	00:30:36,2	00:02:06,0 (00:00:02,7)
16	1	1	Simon JEAN-JOSEPH Jack BOYERE	A6	1	00:30:39,4	00:02:09,2 (00:00:03,2)
17	1	27	Oleg ANTROPOV Evgeniy SHARIPOV	N4	14	00:32:13,1	00:03:42,9 (00:01:33,7)
18	2	28	Andrey YADOV Sergey EFIMOV	N4	15	00:32:57,7	00:04:27,5 (00:00:44,6)
19	3	29	Alexey SOKURENKO Sergey GERASIMENKO	P12	1	00:33:05,7	00:04:35,5 (00:00:08,0)
20	1	37	Luca GRIOTTI Corado BONATO	A7	3	00:33:09,1	00:04:38,9 (00:00:03,4)