A relaxed Andreas Mikkelsen has taken the lead in the Cyprus Rally – the Intercontinental Rally Challenge title showdown – after setting the fastest time around the streets of Pafos in his ŠKODA UK Motorsport Fabia S2000.
The opening stage was a crowd-pleasing two mile sprint around the host town, in which Andreas and co-driver Ola Fløene set an unbeaten time, 3.1 seconds faster than Juho Hänninen.
Andreas is one of five drivers in with a chance of winning the IRC drivers’ title this weekend – and the famous five got together outside Pafos Castle for a photoshoot before the start (pictured from left to right: Jan Kopecký, Juho Hänninen, Thierry Neuville, Andreas and Freddy Loix).
The rally re-starts tomorrow (Friday 4 November) at 09.24, and goes straight into one of the most difficult stages of the entire event – the 15 mile (24.15km) Koilinia test, which is 35.5% asphalt, 64.5% gravel and so sandy and has so many jumps that it has been compared to a motocross track.
“We’ve got a good feeling; we’ve won the last two rallies we’ve contested, in Scotland and Sicily, we’ve had a good two day test in Cyprus and the recce’s gone really well,” says Andreas.
“The stages here in Cyprus are very difficult. The first proper stage [SS2] is very tricky – it’s like a motocross track, with big jumps and a very sandy surface. It’s a real car breaker. Then the final stage of the event is the roughest and the most technical, with a lot of blind crests and a road that goes into and out of an open cast mine – and of course that road is built for huge mining trucks, so it is very rough.
“For sure this will be a very difficult rally. We need to attack, but we also have to try to do everything perfectly and make no mistakes.”
