Taking place in the Azores Islands, the sixth event of the IRC series offered a wild, exotic scenery and a stage in a quarry, and it was the reigning IRC champion, Juho Hänninen of ŠKODA Motorsport, who coped best with the first 25 kilometres divided into three stages. The success of ŠKODA vehicles on Day 1 is underlined by Andreas Mikkelsen of ŠKODA UK Motorsport who is third, just one second behind second Magalhaes, Hänninen's teammate Kopecký is fourth (-11 seconds).
Taking place in Sao Miguel, the biggest of altogether nine Azores Islands, Day 1 has shown how difficult it will be to drive on local gravel full of volcanic stones. The drivers at the top ranks agree that the key to success lies in a combination of speed and safe driving without mistakes that may easily lead to a punctured tyre. That is what actually happened to Hänninen last year to cost him a clear victory. This year he wants to play it cool: “We are in the lead after Day 1 and that is certainly encouraging, but we still have many miles ahead of us, and the surface here is really quite a challenge. The route includes many stretches that pose a risk of a defect that kills your chance of achieving a good result in no time, so we have to do our best to avoid that.”
His teammate Kopecký has appeared on gravel after a whole year: “It's been indeed a long time, the last time we drove on gravel was here. However, the most important thing is that Petr has recovered from his injury. We are certainly not packing it in - on the contrary, we will fight for a good result!”
The drivers' skills will be put to the hardest test on Saturday when the programme includes nine stages (97 kilometres in total). The route will take them twice to the local “seventh” wonder of the world, the foot of a flooded volcano where they will drive as fast as 100 km/h.
