Suzuki's
Urmo Aava claimed his first Junior Rally Championship victory of the season on the Rally d'Italia Sardegna on Sunday, the third round in the Junior series.
Aava led for the majority of the event and while he lost the lead on Saturday following SS8, he regained it on SS10 after his team-mate and only real rival, Per-Gunnar Andersson picked up a puncture and dropped 2 minutes. In the end the Estonian took the victory by more than a minute and he was absolutely delighted, especially as he only lost out to P-G near the end of the previous JRC event in Portugal.
“This win makes up for the disappointment of Portugal last month, where I lost the lead on the final afternoon with a puncture,” he stated. “We're lucky to be here at all after hitting a tree on the second day, but luckily the Suzuki Swift is very strong so it was fine.
“The car has not given us a single problem throughout all three days of this very tough rally, and I've also moved two points closer towards challenging P-G for the lead of the championship.”
Andersson meanwhile was not overly disappointed with second, especially as he still has a commanding lead in the JRC, having scored 28 points thus far from a possible 30.
“First of all, I'd like to congratulate Urmo on a well-deserved victory,” he noted. “After I had my puncture yesterday there was no way I could catch up with him, although we were very closely matched beforehand. It was a really good fight!
"For me, the important thing is that I come away from here still leading the championship. The key to winning the title is to be consistent as well as quick, so I took no risks today to be sure of bringing the car home in one piece.”
Next up was Martin Prokop, who was ‘best of the rest' after Aava and P-G pretty much throughout. He eventually finished though nearly 6.5 minutes off Aava a long, long way back in his
Citroen C2.
![Per-Gunnar Andersson (SWE) / Jonas Andersson (SWE), Suzuki Swift S1600 [Junior RC]. Rally d'Italia Sardegna, 17-20th May 2007.](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/323178.jpg)
