The BP Volkswagen rally team raced home to a second and third place finish overall at the 2010 Volkswagen Rally on Friday and Saturday in the Eastern Cape.
Enzo Kuun and Guy Hodgson did the team proud, racing to a finish just 1.5 seconds behind the event winners, the Toyota team of Johnny Gemmell and Drew Sturrock. Hard on the heels of the leading cars was Jan Habig and Ralph Pitchford who charged across the line to claim third place in their BP Volkswagen Polo S2000.
“Friday was a difficult day, being first on the road we were exposed to lots of risk,” says Kuun. “Running first meant we were going to lose time every step of the way – and I think it probably cost us about 20 seconds over those first six stages.”
The second day of the event saw Kuun and Hodgson battle with an in-car intercom that refused to work on the first stage, costing them even more time. By the end of stage seven – the first stage of day two – the pair were 10.5 seconds off the leaders and they had their work cut out to produce the finaly result just 1.5 seconds off the winners – they had just four stages to make up that deficit.
For Habig and Pitchford the rally was a clean run, without problems or mechanical trouble. The pair did, however, after the rally indicate that their particular choice of setup did not favour the prevailing conditions. This cost them time and meant they were having to fight for every piece of ground.
The result was a 12 second deficit to the rally winners, but a comfortable 18 second advantage over their closest competition in fourth place.
The Volkswagen Rally has always been a demanding event for the home team, but last year it looked as if the BP Volkswagen rally crew had finally found the magic combination. The team produced a result that had everybody talking – a podium that was BP Volkswagen livery from edge to edge, the result of a titanic effort.
In 2010 the challenge was to repeat this achievement – an ambitious task fraught with potential stumbling blocks. For the defending rally champions, Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries the hopes of a rally victory were quickly dashed when they were eliminated in stage one – and the focus was then on producing the best result possible under the circumstances.
In class A7 there was also trouble for Gugu Zulu and Cindi Harding. Their BP Volkswagen Polo lost drive in the first stage, bringing their rally to a very unexpected end. The duo of André Cleenwerck and Kesevan Naidoo had a rally they will be wanting to forget. A big moment on the first stage saw the pair do significant damage to their class A5 BP Volkswagen Citi Golf. Despite the big crash, the duo did not suffer significant injury.
The BP Volkswagen rally team now turn their attention to the Osram Rally which takes place on 21 and 22 August. The fight for the 2010 championship is now between Enzo Kuun and Guy Hodgson in the BP Volkswagen Polo and Johnny Gemmell and Drew Sturrock in the Castrol Toyota Auris.
The BP Volkswagen Polo S2000 entries of Jan Habig and Ralph Pitchford and the defending champions Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries cannot be discounted from the challenge, but Kuun and Hodgson are now the pair with the best shot at the title.
– Credit: Volkswagen of South Africa