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A strong of strength for the Peugeot Rally Academy in Germany

Although the result of the 2016 ADAC Rallye Deutschland does not do justice to his performance, Spaniard Jose Antonio Suarez produced a strong run on the asphalt event, his favourite type of surface, racking up a high number of top WRC2 times in the course of the weekend in his Peugeot 208T16. Meanwhile, Jordan Berfa's second outing in the Peugeot Rally Academy's colours enabled him to continue his promising apprenticeship of the WRC in the Peugeot 208R2.

The 2016 ADAC Rallye Deutschland lived up to the event's reputation, with an exacting programme of technically-challenging stages and changeable weather conditions.

Jose Antonio and Candido Carrera delivered a polished performance, posting several top-three stage times in the WRC2 class in the Peugeot Rally Academy's Peugeot 208T16.

After crashing out on SS2, Jordan Berfa and Damien Augustin were able to re-join the event under the Rally 2 ruling. They went on to record some eloquent stage times and gain more experience in the Peugeot 208R2.

JOSE ANTONIO ‘COHETE' SUAREZ AND CANDIDO CARRERA UP WITH THE BEST

Cohete and Candido hit the ground running on Friday when they posted the fourth fastest WRC2 time on SS1 before topping the timesheet on the following test. Another fourth-best time on SS3 promoted the Peugeot 208T16 pair to second in their class. However, a puncture on SS4 cost the Spaniards two-and-a-half minutes and the opening leg ended with them incurring a costly time penalty for late arrival at the end-of-day service halt.

Jose Antonio Suarez started the next day determined to claw back as much ground as possible but he admitted to lacking confidence on the early stages which featured a combination of dry and wet conditions. However, following a spin on SS8, and aided by the Peugeot 208T16's efficiency on the German stages, he fought back to record a sequence of top-three WRC2 times.

Sunday's action saw Suarez maintain the same fast pace which was rewarded with top-three WRC2 times on every one of the last day's stages. He was globally pleased with his weekend, as well as with the form of the Peugeot 208T16: "Saturday wasn't easy because the conditions kept changing all the time but I'm very happy with our performance. The Peugeot 208T16 was competitive and reliable and we might have been able to challenge for a top-three finish in WRC2 had it not been for the puncture we picked up on the first day. I can hardly wait for my next event with the Peugeot Rally Academy in Corsica."

A PROMISING END TO RALLYE DEUTSCHLAND FOR JORDAN BERFA AND DAMIEN AUGUSTIN

Jordan Berfa and Damien Augustin got off to a good start by posting the fourth-best time on SS1 and mixing it with the R3 runners. Unfortunately, the Peugeot 208R2 crew crashed out on the following stage.

They were able to re-start on Saturday under the Rally 2 ruling and, despite a poor tyre choice for the second leg's opening loop, they succeeded in appearing at the sharp end of the class's timesheets on a regular basis. The Junior winner of the 2015 208 Rally Cup met all the objectives he had set himself for the final part of the rally, namely gaining more experience while matching the pace of the class's top runners.

"We managed to recover from our early crash to gauge ourselves against the class's experts and gain more experience in the Peugeot 208R2 ahead of the next round in Corsica where we will be on home soil."

The next WRC appearance of the Peugeot Rally Academy will be the Tour de Corse - Rallye de France on September 29-October 2.