Season
Excellent seventh place for Jan Kopecký
Eight special stages were on schedule in the Saturday's leg of BP Ultimate Acropolis Rally, part of which was also a section called "Agii Theodori" with an exceptional length of 48.9 kilometers. Extremely long special stage has tested the race cars as well as crews throughout today's leg twice. Mainly the second run of the almost fifty kilometer special stage was merciless especially on the tires. Understandably the demanding special stage with an exceptional length very significantly impacted the driver rankings of the BP Ultimate Acropolis Rally. The Czech Rally Team Kopecký crew has tackled all the pitfalls of Saturday's leg flawlessly and Jan Kopecký and Filip Schovánek are now before the final leg in an excellent seventh place. In Sunday's leg there are six special stages which await the crews and their total length is ninety kilometers and with regards to the grueling conditions in the BP Ultimate Acropolis Rally, nothing is yet even close to being decided with respect to the results of the Greek Rally.
"The current seventh place in the standings is excellent and it's understandable that we are satisfied with our current position in this demanding gravel race. The Acropolis Rally is a very hard race not only for the crews, but especially for the race cars and their tires. Today we had the almost fifty kilometer test in the schedule twice, which was extremely tough. Our Škoda Fabia WRC car has handled the hard tracks very well and ran without any technical issues.
During the other special stages we were more considerate with our break system as a result of the great heat in Greece. I tried to eliminate the overheating of the brakes. There was a great wear of the tires in the longest special stage of the rally and this was a factor that all the crews were fighting with. I ran the special stages with the knowledge of the extreme load on the tires, and that is why our tires at the special stage finish lines belonged among the least used up and damaged.
I am greatly looking forward to tomorrow's leg, because we are running a great race so far and we were able to find not only a well suited setup of the Škoda Fabia WRC car for the Acropolis Rally, but also a very good rhythm," said the driver Jan Kopecký.
The BP Ultimate Acropolis Rally will end with a spectator special stage at the Markopoulo Mesoganias Hippodrome, which was constructed for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. Start of the last special stage is scheduled for half past one in the afternoon.
