Yigit Timur completed the final stage 46.6s ahead of Andrea Mabellini in the battle to win the Clio Trophy by Toksport WRT on the back of an impressive performance from the Turkish driver.
But an early check-in earned a two-minute time penalty that would drop him to second and promote Italian Mabellini to first in the new arrive-and-drive series for the Clio Rally5 on MICHELIN tyres.
Ghjuvanni Rossi beat fellow Frenchman Bastien Bergounhe to third place by 3.0s, while it was a case of what might have been for Paulo Soria. The round one winner from Argentina slid into a ditch and got stuck on SS1 but restarted on Sunday and took class wins on all but one stage to claim fifth spot.
Afterwards, Mabellini said: “It was a difficult rally, difficult stages, really fast. We are not used to these conditions, but we are happy and we learn a lot. We will see what the championship brings us in Rome, but we are happy for the result. It’s very important having the next race in Italy because we will have no problem with the luggage. With this trophy it will be a problem to come back to Italy! But with a race in Italy in our own car we can go home with no problem! We still have to improve our pacenotes to do these jumps flat-out and then the corner behind. It’s tricky but we are happy the time was good. Everything has been okay with the car and the tyres worked well.”
