Hungarian Rally Championship

[Tom206wrc]

Sad news again

[TWRC]

So after missing out on the ERC, the Zemplén Rally was the Championship closing weekend for the Hungarian Championship, with a 1.5 coefficient. 4 crews had a mathematical chance to clinch the title:
1. Csomós - Nagy: arrived as leaders and most likely to win (needed a 7th place finish to clinch the title)
2. Velenczei - Vánsza: got some good results and kept themselves in contention
3. Turán - Zsiros: never had the best outright speed, but kept collecting the results.
4. Német - Németh: outside chance, had good speed but quite a few mistakes as well.

Before the event, Turán announced that he was not taking part (the rally was pushed back by a week, and he had contractual obligations in a movie as a stunt driver), and Velenczei had to switch co-drivers due to his regular teammate not being medically cleared.

And alas, more drama already unfolded on the first day: on SS3, Mixi and Ati had an accident with another chassis destroyed. This opened up the door for the remaining two.
In lieu of this, a familiar name turned back time and grabbed the lead: András Hadik! He was finally happy with the Fiesta and it showed. Close behind was Velenczei and also Német.

On Sunday, things turned very quickly: Német got the lead on the first stage, but rolled on the next, ending his hopes of winning the title (and the rally of course). Then disaster struck for Hadik, who clipped some chicanes and had a power steering failure, and ended up 3rd. Velenczei didn't blink and won the event, also winning the Title.
Podium on the rally:
1. Velenczei-Bán
2. Klausz-Papp
3. Hadik-Kertész

It was a very intersting and eventful two days, had more exciting things happen than possibly the whole championship. Mixi sees another big achievement pass him by, hopefully they can recover and learn from this.
It also had some intersting cameos: Bútor was there with the C3 WRC, but retired due to technical problems. Also, the Bulgarian crew Titov-Spirov finished 12th in a very new environment for them.