Media Information
Silk Way Rally 2017
20 July 2017
Silk Way Rally 2017 – Leg 12 – Jiayuguan –
Alxa Youqi
-
Top 10 stage finishes for both MINI John Cooper Works Rally
cars (#101 #105) -
Yazeed Al Rajhi / Tom Colsoul finish 5th to hold
on to 10th place overall -
Bryce Menzies / Peter Mortensen cross the line in
9th after a challenging stage
Munich. The huge dunes on stage 12 of the 2017 Silk Way Rally
provided challenges for the competitors today as they made their way
from Jiayuguan to Alxa Youqi.
Yazeed Al Rajhi (KSA) and co-driver Tom Colsoul (BEL) showed their
combined experience on sandy terrain in the #101 MINI John Cooper
Works Rally and reaped the rewards with a fifth place stage finish to
maintain 10th position overall.
Al Rahji: “We started the stage and we didn’t push,
we drove smoothly. After CP1 I tried to stop because I could see far
away some dust following Bryce but I stopped for maybe 2 to
2-and-a-half minutes to let him pass and when he passed I followed him
until the dunes. After the dunes, at about 80km from the finish I got
stuck in one place from staying too far left, so I kept right and
immediately passed a car on the right side. Again after I followed
him, I saw some dust so kept even more right to get a flying finish.”
It was a more difficult stage for Bryce Menzies (USA) and Peter
Mortensen (USA) in the #105 MINI John Cooper Works Rally. After
getting lost and incurring a penalty, the pair finished the stage in
ninth to push them down to fourth overall, but they remain positive
with two stages remaining.
Menzies: “The stage started out really well, we
caught Yazeed and Cyril and then after that we were kind of leading
the trail. The dunes are massive; we got lost and couldn’t find the
waypoint so we were searching around for about 20-25 minutes, maybe
even more. It was kind of frustrating that we couldn’t find the tracks
and then once everybody starting closing in, we went over one of the
dunes and found everyone but by that time we’d lost too much time. I
think we’re 4th overall now, so we lost a lot of time, but
I think tomorrow’s more dunes, around 70% of the stage, so the
competitors have to start out front and make the trail, so I hope that
we can make up time just like they did today. It’s racing and
especially in the rally anything can happen. We’re just going to keep
fighting and pushing and we have one more day after tomorrow to take
it all the way to the end – we’re still in the fight and only 14
minutes from second place overall. Tomorrow’s a new day.”
Tomorrow’s penultimate stage 13 of the 2017 Silk Way Rally takes the
competitors from Alxa Youqi to Zhongwei.
Silk Way Rally 2017: Ranking after Leg 12