Media Information
Silk Way Rally 2017
11 July 2017
Silk Way Rally 2017
– Leg 4: Kostanay – Astana
-
Bryce Menzies / Peter Mortensen complete Leg 4 in seventh
place to maintain fourth overall. -
Yazeed Al Rajhi / Tom Colsoul excel again to finish Leg 4 in
second and continue their climb up the rankings.
Munich. Bryce Menzies (USA) and co-driver Peter Mortensen
(USA) put in another display of consistency during the two special
stages of Leg 4 special. At the end of the combined 373.22km
off-road distance, the American duo in the #105 MINI John Cooper
Works Rally was credited with seventh place to maintain their
overall fourth place ranking.
Leg 4 was again run over 100% soil with much vegetation and track
degradation with heavy rain adding to the difficulty of maintaining
speed over rough ground. It is little wonder, then, that the pair slid
off the track and into a ditch. Fortunately, the stranded duo were
assisted after 20 minutes by a passing truck before continuing with
caution to the end of Leg 4’s special stage.
Menzies: “We slid into a ravine early on, which was
frustrating and caused us a delay of about 20 minutes, but from there
we had a pretty clean stage despite the wet and slippery conditions.
We tried to play it a little cautious to make sure we got to the
finish line, but all-in-all it was a pretty good day for us and we’re
still in the race.”
Yazeed Al Rajhi (KSA) and Tom Colsoul (BEL) proved yet again – not
that proof is really required – they and their MINI John Cooper Works
Rally would have been a serious challenge to the Silk Way title if
wasn’t for an unfortunate setback in Leg 2.
Despite the wet and slippery conditions, today’s racing saw another
top five finish for this newly formed duo. Precise navigation by
Colsoul and the driving skills of Al Rajhi netted the #101 MINI John
Cooper Works Rally second place after 3hr:32 sec of special stage
action. This result means this MINI Family crew has now jumped to
23rd in the overall standings.
Colsoul: “So today started pretty nice, it was a fast
stage with some tricky navigation points, which was quite cool. About
50 or 60km before the finish of the first part it started to rain
heavily and it completely changed the conditions; it was horrible. It
was so slippery, so I was 100% sure that the second part would be
cancelled but it went ahead. We had another 160km of rain and slippery
conditions, which were not fun. We managed to finish 2nd by
not making any mistakes and I think that’s the only way to deal with a
stage like that.”
Tomorrow’s Leg 5, Astana – Semey, will feature a 60-40 mix of soil
and gravel/rock strewn terrain over 484.47km of special stage during
the 849.54 total distance to be covered.
Silk Way Rally 2017: Ranking after Leg 4