Andrea Mabellini produced an impressive drive to avoid trouble that caught out many of his rivals to lead ERC Staff House Rally Hungary after an eventful Saturday.
The Italian, driving a Pirelli-equipped Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 for The Racing Factory posted fastest times in four of Saturday’s six tricky gravel stages, to hold a 10.6sec lead over Team MRF Tyres’ Roope Korhonen. Last year’s Rally Hungary winner Simone Tempestini completed the day in third, 30.8sec adrift.
Mabellini jumped to the rally lead after winning stage two (Hegyesd, 18.75km) before extending that advantage over the hard-charging Korhonen to 4.0sec at the end of the morning loop. There was some drama for the crew when co-driver Virginia Lenzi felt some discomfort in her back following a heavy landing from a jump on the mammoth Kislőtér test but was given the all clear to continue.
The pair posted an identical time to rival Jon Armstrong to top stage five before driving smartly through the heavily rutted second pass of Kislőtér. Mabellini ended the day by winning stage seven (Várpalota 2) to extend the lead over Korhonen to 10.6sec.
“The pace is really high and tomorrow is another day. I think we had a great time to day and sorry to Virgi [co-driver] for the jump this morning,” said Mabellini.
Korhonen started the afternoon 4.0sec behind Mabellini but his victory challenge seemed to have suffered a blow in Kislőtér 2 when the Finn was caught in the dust of the recovering M-Sport Ford of Jon Armstrong. Unfortunately, Armstrong, sitting third at the time 3.6sec behind Korhonen was forced to stop twice in the stage due to tyre damage, that required two wheel changes.
Korhonen initially dropped 29.5sec as he struggled to see in the hanging dust from Armstrong and dropped to fourth before officials later issued a revised time that restored his second position.
“It has been a quite clean day for us so let’s see what we can do tomorrow. Of course, it is difficult [to avoid tyre damage] but luckily, we have good tyres, so it is good.”
Armstrong’s misfortune demoted the Ford driver out of the points-paying positions after what had been a strong showing up until stage six.
“The conditions were quite rough. The first puncture was in the rough section, but then the second one we were stuck in dust and going slowly, and I don’t even know what happened there,” said Armstrong.
“To get two in the one stage is pretty unlucky. I don’t know what the game plan is now but it is a big shame as everything was going quite well.”
Last year’s winner and overnight leader Tempestini inherited third position after setting the pace in stage six where Armstrong was forced to stop twice.
Three Hungarians are in the top ten, and Martin László is the best of them with his eighth position: “We’ve had a trouble-free day, we’ve avoided punctures and problems, so we try to carry on like this. I would have accepted a top ten finish before the race” said László. My favourite stage today was the Kislőtér, although we had to be careful with that as well, because we jumped so much in the second loop that Vitya Bán hit his spine so hard on one of the jumps that he could hardly breathe, he could hardly say the instructions, but of course, he said them. Tomorrow will be another long day, there is a lot to win and lose, I hope the previous one will happen to us.”
Gábor Német, whose priority is the Hungarian championship classification, is ninth in the ERC standings: “These stages can easily decimate the field – thank God, we were fine. We broke a rim on the second Hegyesd stage, but we got away with it – it would be nice, if this good streak could continue tomorrow. Overall, we tried to go carefully today, with a good medium pace to keep the car together until the end. Basically, we didn’t have any major mistakes, of course, you can feel where you’re missing tenths and seconds as you go along, but we can’t be dissatisfied, we’re in the top ten. The national championship is more important for us anyway, that’s what we are focusing on.”
Sándor Ollé didn’t think he could catch up and climb to tenth place: „ We had a good day! The last lap we drove not bothered by anyone, because either somebody overturned in front of us or the spectators had issues, but there were no cars either in front of us or behind us, and we just kept going. Our result was quite good, we got faster and faster, I didn’t think we could catch up so much. We were too careful on the first and the third stage, but on all the others we had a good strong pace. It all came together, we didn’t have any punctures, we were lucky, but we really need luck here.”
Ollé leads Master category, ahead of former Formula 1 driver Jos Verstappen, who is making his first ever rally on gravel. The Dutchman has come through the day without any major problems and has learned a lot – in fact, that’s why he’s here.
„I gained a lot of useful experience today on how to drive on gravel, because I’ve only had asphalt experience so far, not only in terms of driving but also in terms of writing the pacenote” Verstappen said. “I really enjoyed the day, even though I lost a lot of time on the second stage in the Kislőtér, because I could hardly see anything in the dirt. But that’s part of the learning process, as we have four or five gravel races this year, so we need to improve in that as well. And what is the plan? To finish the competition.”
The four-time champion Nobert Herczig was in the best position for long, but he changed his tyre on the second Kislőtér stage, which cost him four minutes. But at least he can continue, unlike Miklós Csomós, who had a puncture on the first and second stage, but only had one spare wheel (but he will continue in super rally on Sunday, so he will be back with a penalty), or Frigyes Turán, who overturned and although he got back on four wheels with the help of the fans, his car was damaged, or three-time overall champion András Hadik, who had a double puncture on the penultimate stage…
6 more stages will follow on Sunday.
STAFF HOUSE RALLY HUNGARY, ROUND 1 OF ERC, VESZPRÉM
Overall classification after 7 stages: 1. Andrea Mabellini, Virginia Lenzi (Italian, Skoda Fabia RS) 1:01:17.9, 2. Korhonen, Viinikka (Finnish, Toyota GR Yaris) +10.6 sec, 3. Tempestini, Itu (Romanian, Skoda Fabia RS) +30.8 sec, …8. Martin László, Viktor Bán (Hungarian, Skoda Fabia RS) +2:04.3 min, 9. Gábor Német, Gergely Németh (Hungarian, Skoda Fabia RS) 2:27.4, 10. Sándor Ollé, Rebeka Ollé (Hungarian, Skoda Fabia Evo) + 3:39.3 min.