Final
round of JWRC season has been held in Spain
Catalunya. The organizer has chosen some new
gravel-tarmac mixed stages, which gave new
flavour to this traditional tarmac surfaced
event. This round has been nominated by nine
Junior entrants.
Both Junior World Rally
Champion aspirants (the Suzuki Driver- Aaron
Burkart, and the Citroen driver Hans Weijs)
were fighting here for the title, and the
local Spanish hero, Yeray Lemes been here
also to show his performance in front of his
Spanish fans.
Unfortunately the another
Suzuki Sport Europe driver Karl Kruuda could
not get the permit from Organiser to drive
in Spain, since because of his young age he
was not eligible to drive according to the
local traffic law. This was a pain for Suzuki
Sport Europe Team, because he didn't get chance
to keep his 3rd position in the championship.
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Before the event Aaron Burkart was staying
on the lead of the Championship by 7 points
ahead Hans Weijs. The target for Aaron
was of course to score the necessary points
to become the JWRC Champion.
On the opening
day, as it was expected before, Weijs,
Lemes and Burkart were fighting from beginning.
The day ended by Lemes leading, Weijs
behind, and Aaron on third place.
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Suzuki Sport Europe performed
a lot of efforts to develop its Swift S1600
through the whole season, still an unfortunate
trouble happened to Aaron, what was forced him
to retire on the second day, and dropped him
down from 3rd place to 6th, while Lemes could
kept on the lead, and Weijs on 2nd place.
For the final day the
only chance remained for Aaron to catch the
two car in front of him, and hope that the local
driver Yeray Lemes can keep himself on the lead,
and keep Hans Weijs behind.
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On the penultimate day Aaron has made
a perfect job. He didn't give up, and
kept the pressure on the rivals. He had
to and he stepped up to 4th place. As
well known the rally is unpredictable
and the fortune is changing so many times.
The rough rally conditions this time impeded
Yeray Lemes, and Hans Weijs also, but
both of them were leading the rally for
a while. Two stages before the end the
fortune has turned again, and Hans Weijs
has dropped down to third place, while
Lemes got the lead again. |
Finally the event been
won by Yeray Lemes, followed by Bulgarian Todor
Slavov, Hans Weijs and Aaron Burkart.
This 12 scored point
was enough for Aaron to keep himself on the
top of the leader board, and secured him his
first JWRC Champion title! After Per-Gunnar
Anderson's double victory, Aaron Burkart is
the third driver who became Junior World Champion
driving Suzuki Swift S1600 rally cars.
After the event Aaron
Burkart commented: "I am so happy now.
Despite the week started with a bad moment,
when I had a crash during our test on Monday
of the rally week, and that time I was almost
not able to participate on the rally. However
our team has made a perfect job and built me
a new car in 3 days, which is amazing. The rally
started well, I was in a fight with Yeray Lemes
and Hans Weijs, but on Saturday a broken new
stud bolt forced me to retire. At that time
I had no chance to win, and I was very disappointed.
However, on the rally field anything can happen.
I didn't give up, and I knew I have to finish
at least on 4th position to have any chance
for winning. I feel sorry for Hans, that he
also faced technical failure in the last moments.
Finally I could do it, and I'd like to thank
to all Suzuki Sport Europe Team that they helped
me a lot to achieve the Title!"
Mr. Nobuhiro Tajima,
Chairman of Suzuki Sport commented: "Until
now, Suzuki Sport Europe was present in JWRC
from the beginning, and been a determinant part
of the JWRC championship. We are very happy
and proud that we could do that, and we have
won 3 times! We would like to thank to all of
our fans that our team has received so many
encouragements from them. We were secured JWRC
title 2 times in earlier years with P-G Andersson,
and now I am also very happy that we have Champion
title again! In the name of Suzuki Sport Europe
personally I'd like to thank for Aaron his efforts
and congratulate him for his first JWRC title.
From next year Suzuki Sport Europe will join
to Monster Sport Europe in UK, and continue
its motorsport activity. This choice is made
because due to the decision taken by the F.I.A.
to replace the Junior World Rally Championship
in 2011 with the WRC Academy, where the S1600
cars are not eligible to take apart, Suzuki
Sport Europe has already made a decision to
close its workshop in Hungary by the end of
2010 and transfer their operations over to Monster
Sport Europe in the UK. So I have to say that
Aaron Burkart has made a remarkable result in
the penultimate year of JWRC history."
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