Having re-gained his confidence somewhat in Cyprus, with a solid points finish, Pons is keen to get a top six finish on Sunday: “On the Turkish Rally, you find a bit of Cyprus and a bit of Greece, we can say that it’s a difficult event. To perform well, you have to drive without being too aggressive. The average speed should be higher than in Cyprus and I think that is good news. I’m hoping for a better result than seventh. However, I will drive a World Rally Car for the first time in Turkey and I will see how it goes on Friday. Then my target will be to increase the rhythm progressively and keep it consistent. In such a tough rally, the reliability of your machinery can be the key and this is one of the Xsara’s strongest points.”
Other notable entries include Jan Kopecky and
Francois Duval, both in Skoda Fabia WRC cars. Duval’s actual participation has yet to be confirmed though as he had to miss the last round in Cyprus having lost the backing from sponsor Kizz-me.
Alex Bengue will run under the Red Devil Atoyle Kazaz banner, in a
Subaru Impreza, while Armodios Vovos and Ercan Kazaz will also run in Impreza’s. The Ford Rallye Sport Turkey team meanwhile will enter three Ford Focus WRC cars for Mehmet Besler, Adnan Sarihan, and Emre Yurdakul.
Route:
The route shows few differences to last year. The holiday resort of Kemer is again the base and home to the single service park. All three legs are located in the complex maze of gravel roads high in the Anatolian mountains to the west, although a new stage just south of the town will be used during the first and last days. Thursday evening's ceremonial start will be held in the larger city of Antalya 40km north and a super special stage at the university on the edge of the city will end the opening two legs. Nine stages will be repeated with just the final test on Sunday used once. Drivers tackle 351.01km of competition in a route of 1201.85km.
Hot tip:
With
Sebastien Loeb having been forced to miss this event following his mountain bike accident, BP Ford’s Marcus Gronholm will take up the mantle as the favourite and looks odds on to secure his fifth win of the season, to add to those victories in Monte Carlo, Sweden, Greece and Finland.
Last year:
Sebastien Loeb won the event in 2005, just under a minute up on
Petter Solberg, who was second. Marcus Gronholm rounded out the podium, ahead of Carlos Sainz and
Markko Martin. A number of works drivers had problems, including Armin Schwarz,
Chris Atkinson, Harri Rovanpera and
Henning Solberg. All managed to restart under the SupeRally though, with the exception of Schwarz, Rovanpera finishing just inside the top ten, while Henning was around 3 minutes adrift in eleventh.
