2011 Rally Scotland
The RACMSA Rally of Scotland 2011 was the tenth round of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge 2011. The rally was held from 7 to October 9, 2011 at Perth in Scotland.
Background
The Rally of Scotland in 2011 had a higher priority than the previous IRC runs for the Appreciation of the IRC. It has been awarded 1.5 times the otherwise customary in the IRC score. The winner was therefore 37.5 instead of 25 points.
On three days were 15 special stages over a distance of 196.96 kilometers on the program. Since testing had to be canceled, after only 183.8 timed kilometers were completed. The rally took over gravelly forest roads in hilly terrain. The liquid route allowed for relatively high speeds. Were located at the edges of the roadway partially deep trenches, so that a mistake easily in a failure could have ended.
The weather was almost always rainy. This had a very slippery track conditions result. This was especially problematic for the Michelin tires vehicles. Michelin had to rally namely can not deliver the soft tire compound, but only the medium and hard, which offered a lower adhesion.
In order to rally 37 teams had started. The championship candidate Freddy Loix set out in the Rally of Scotland. In contrast, Škoda Auto Germany brought back a vehicle for Matthias Kahle at the start, his 50th of the rally completed in Scotland in Škoda services.
Course
The rally started on Friday night with two stages in the dark. Guy Wilks had a good start to the rally and decided both tests for themselves. He took a lead of 4.1 seconds to Juho Hänninen with in the second day.
On the second leg on Saturday Andreas Mikkelsen was clearly the fastest and scored four of the five fastest times. Already on the fourth test he had taken the lead in the overall standings of Wilks. Wilks turned his Peugeot on WP5 in a quick left turn into a ditch. With the help of some viewers, he was able to free his vehicle out of the ditch, but had already lost over six minutes. In this test, translated also the problems for the proton - factory drivers. Per- Gunnar Andersson, who had previously driven a surprisingly strong rally, had to contend with an electronic defect. Since he had appeared after the test too late to the service park, he received two penalty minutes and fell back. For local hero Alister McRae Rally on WP5 was finally over when he had to park his vehicle with low oil pressure. The above second-placed Thierry Neuville put on WP7 two spin out, losing just under a minute so he dropped back to fourth. WP8, the final test of the day had to be canceled due to heavy rains. Mikkelsen had moved out a big lead on his pursuers. He was at the end of the day already 50.7 seconds before Bryan Bouffier and 51.7 seconds before Hänninen in the lead.
On the third and final day Mikkelsen again took out some pace. Patrik Sandell secured on WP10 surprisingly a best time, but touched on this test with the rear of his Škoda a stone, and then was forced to retire with a broken suspension. With a new spin Neuville damaged his reverse gear. He let it lie over a minute and fell further back. Meanwhile attacked Hänninen, who had already advanced to second place and alone gutmachte on WP11 over 20 seconds Mikkelsen. In WP12 Boufflers brakes failed, so he lost almost 40 seconds and had to give up the fight for second place against Hänninen. Behind him, the young Irishman Craig Breen against Jan Kopecký was able to hold on fourth place, although his Ford ran only on three cylinders. In WP13 the leading Mikkelsen suffered shortly before the finish of a tire failure, loss of time but stayed within limits. On the final WP15 Wilks had to end his race to catch up with a broken rim. Mikkelsen was nothing more burn and eventually scored his first win in the IRC. He was simultaneously the hitherto youngest winner in the history of IRC. Hänninen still came down to 26.4 seconds zoom and came in second. The podium was completed Bouffier with a backlog of 1:35,3 minutes. Matthias Kahle benefited from some failures before him and achieved tenth place his first IRC points. 22 teams counted.
Because of the relatively weak cutting the leader in Championship Jan Kopecký, the driver moved to the top of the drivers' championship again closer together. Juho Hänninen had now produced almost connection to his teammates. With his victory also Andreas Mikkelsen brought in a good position in the fight for the championship. Before the last race of the season in Cyprus still had six drivers title chances.