Press Releases - WRS3: Monte Carlo, Day 3 & 4

WRS3: Monte Carlo, Day 3 & 4

Day 3, and more of the same. Rain falling in the morning and clear mountain skies in the afternoon saw a handful of drivers reclaim a lot of lost time on wet tyres early on, before losing it all again in the afternoon session. Hungarian Dave Varadi guiding his Ford Fiesta to P2 behind Vaculik on the first two stages, followed on both occasions by 26 year old Raul Müller driving the only Skoda to appear in the points on Day 3.

The afternoon saw another new stage winner as leader Vaculik felt the pain of intermediate tyres on dry roads, with Wynn Hunter taking the win at La Bâtie-Neuve! Although only by a slender margin of 0.900 seconds over Martin. The fact that the 33 year old could contest for stage wins despite being on sub-optimal rubber shows precisely the staggering advantage he has!

It's all still to play for in the points paying positions though, after three hours total on the board, somehow P6 - P9 were separated by just four seconds! Müller lead the group in P6, followed by the youngster De Souza, Varadi, and Finland's Jaakko Korhonen with one day, four stages left to run.

Day 4 saw an upset at the top, both positively and negatively, and all at the hands of British driver; Wynn Hunter. Starting the day with a stage win in the wet, Hunter then proceeded to scupper his attempts at a clean sweep of 2nd place finishes by binning it on stage 2, and retiring from the final day, joining 9 other retirees in the process.

"We had a very healthy margin, just shy of two and a half minutes over Mazur in third, we went into the final day risk free, conservative tyres and low aggression to try and see out this great run of form in Monte, I really don't know what happened but, these are fine margins on mountain roads. I can be happy with the performance overall as we are punching way above expectation!"

Hunters vacation of P2 opened the door for Mazur to claim 2nd, and surpass the 21 year olds points tally across the event, as Vaculik romped to an dominant win, taking the event by over 7 minutes!

De Souza valiantly battled to hold on to his slender margin in P6 - which would become P5 after Hunters demise - but in a flurry of skill and poise, Dave Varadi, who went into the final day in 8th, hauled his Fiesta up three spots to claim a fantastic overall P5!

And finally, one more good news story, as the series' youngest driver, 18 year old Michael Daněk, who narrowly missed out on points very early on in 11th, finally came good on the last day of competition to claim 10th, and his first world championship point!
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And so, the circus moves on, next up will be studded tyres and a healthy thermos budget, as WRS3 heads to the snow of Sweden with the championship as follows:

1. M. Vaculik - 100pts
2. A. Mazur - 60pts
3. W. Hunter - 54pts
4. J. Bão Pereira - 54pts
5. H. Castroneves - 42pts