In the fifth round of this year’s FIA World Rally Championship, the crew of Gus Greensmith and Jonas Andersson claimed third place in the WRC2 category. This result helped the RaceSeven team duo, driving a Škoda Fabia RS Rally2, solidify their third place in the highly competitive WRC2 category standings.
For Greensmith, rally de Portugal was his second points-scoring event of the season, and his third-place finish keeps him in his fight for a top spot in the WRC2 championship. His rivals who currently lead the standings have already completed three of their seven nominated points-scoring rallies.
The British Swedish crew had even been aiming for a notch higher position from the start of the rally. At the end of the second stage, they were holding second place with a 5.5-second lead over their closest rival. However, on Sunday, Greensmith and Andersson lost a bit of pace, and after the 20th special stage, they dropped to third place, which they then safely maintained until the finish.
Two more crews driving Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 cars finished in the top ten of the WRC2 category in Portugal. Sixth place went to the Italian duo Roberto Daprà and Luca Beltrame, while Finns Mikko Heikkilä and Kristian Temonen claimed eighth position. They admitted the result could have been better, but the crew chose the wrong tyres on Friday. “It cost us dearly,” said Heikkilä. The poor tyre choice left them in tenth place on Friday, so the Finnish duo spent the next two days chasing down their rivals.
Friday also didn’t go well for the Estonian crew of Robert Virves and Jakko Viilo, who rolled their car in the penultimate stage of the day. Although they escaped the crash uninjured, they were forced to retire and couldn’t continue. Until then, they had been holding a promising fourth place.
However, the Škoda fared much better in the WRC Masters Cup category for drivers over 50 years of age. In this category, they took the complete podium. Local Pedro Meireles and Mário Castro were on the top step of the podium. Second place belonged to the Turkish duo of Uǧur Soylu/Sener Güray and third place went to another Portuguese duo, Francisco Teixeira and co-driver João Serôdio.
