Premiere: ŠKODA Motorsport to take part in two simultaneous rallies
4/16/2012
Hänninen to appear at the Mille Miglia Rally, Kopecký to take part in the Šumava Rally. The Mille Miglia Rally is the second event of this year's European Championship. Jan Kopecký will fight for Czech Championship points.
ŠKODA Motorsport is getting ready for a busy rallying weekend: for the first time in history, ŠKODA's factory team will take part in two simultaneous rallies. While Juho Hänninen & Mikko Markkula are about to appear at the Mille Miglia Rally in Italy, the second event of this season's European Championship, Jan Kopecký & Pavel Dresler are getting ready for the Šumava Rally, the third event of the Czech Rally Championship. After sweeping the podium at the Ireland Rally two weeks ago, ŠKODA is eager to continue its success story also in Italy and the Czech Republic over the upcoming weekend.
Having celebrated his first victory this year two weeks ago in Ireland, Hänninen is optimistic before the second event of this year's European Championship: “We made a good start to this season by finishing second at the Jänner Rally in January, and we want to win as many points as possible also in Italy, although the Mille Miglia will be a new experience for us. The home drivers will certainly be pretty fast, but we want to keep up with them.”
Jan Kopecký, the winner of the first two rallies of this year's Czech Championship, is also very determined to put in a good performance at the Šumava Rally: “My last appearance at the Šumava Rally was seven years ago, but the Czech Republic in general is obviously no unknown for us. We are getting great support from the factory team, and we are looking to continue the good performances from the first two events.”
The Mille Miglia Rally consists of 15 stages spread over 257 kilometres. The drivers at the Šumava Rally will have to cope with 15 stages as well, but “only” 176 competition kilometres. The winners of both events will be known at about the same time, on Saturday afternoon.