Seventh heaven for Loix on Ypres Rally

Freddy Loix maintained his impressive record on the Ypres Rally by scoring a seventh victory on the joint-European Rally Championship/IRC event last weekend.

The Skoda driver was rarely challenged en route to a one minute 41 seconds victory in Belgium after problems delayed all of his rivals throughout the weekend.

Guy Wilks was the only man capable of challenging the Belgian on pace alone before a pair of punctures on day two saw him drop five minutes and fall outside of the top ten. Only a miraculous recovery drive helped the Briton salvage sixth despite suffering a third puncture late on Sunday.

A string of accidents accounted for the championship’s other leading contenders with Loix’s factory Skoda team-mate Jan Kopecky failing to make the start after co-driver Petr Stary hurt his collarbone in a shakedown crash.

Corsica winner Thierry Neuville and Andreas Mikkelsen fared only slightly better with accidents on Special Stage 1 curtailing their involvement, while Bruno Magalhaes suffered an engine failure while running fourth.   

An odd road section incident accounted for local driver and top-three contender Pieter Tsjoen while power steering failure for Bernd Casier removed another of Loix’s potential rivals. 

All that allowed Bryan Bouffier to come through to take second place following a couple of minor incidents on day one, ahead of Junior World Rally Championship runner-up Hans Weijs who completed the podium on his S2000 debut.

Michal Solowow brought the leading Ford Fiesta home fourth ahead of Patrick Snijers’ Class 1 Mini John Cooper Works machine and Wilks, who edged out Karl Kruuda on the final stage.

Catch European Rally Championship coverage on Motors TV throughout 2011.

Tom Hornsby