Silk Way Rally 2017 – Leg 4: Kostanay – Astana

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 23^rd 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 2^nd 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