Autosportfoto

Rego to open his local ERC roads, Lukyanuk chooses 15th

Azores Airlines Rallye local Luís Rego will be first on the road in this afternoon's opening stages on the fourth round of the FIA European Rally Championship.

Having been 15th fastest in this morning's Qualifying Stage, Rego was the last driver to select his starting position, and left with no choice other than to sweep the road on the gravel stages, which will be his first ever in an R5 car having won the ERC Production Cup on his home event in 2014.

The fastest driver in the Qualifying Stage, Alexey Lukyanuk opted for the lowest available position 15th. "I hope it's a good decision but we will see later," said the Russian driver. "If we made something wrong it's not that dramatic because we have only 30 kilometres [of stages] today and it won't have a big impact on the result."

Kajetan Kajetanowicz then mixed things up by choosing 12th, with Ralfs Sirmacis going for 11th - noting that it was the same position from which he won on the Acropolis Rally. Ricardo Moura opted for 13th, saying he wanted to follow in the tracks of defending ERC champion Kajetanowicz, with Antonín Tlusťák rewarded for his strong Qualifying Stage run by being able to pick the penultimate position.

Those outside the top five in the Qualifying Stage results then selected the lead 10 positions in the starting order in reverse, meaning Rego will be followed into the stage by Raul Jeets, the Portuguese champion José Pedro Fontes, Pedro Meireles, Dávid Botka, seven-time event winner Fernando Peres, João Barros, Jarosłav Kołtun, Jaroslav Orsák and Frank Tore Larsen.

The rally begins with four stages on Thursday afternoon, starting with Batalha, which is 7.27 kilometres in length and begins at 15h57.

Zdroj: fiaerc.com