Unstoppable Al-Attiyah aces morning loop of Cyprus Rally
On top form, Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiyah continued to march on in with his VW Polo during the morning loop of day 2 of the 2019 Cyprus Rally on Sunday.
According to a press release, Al-Attiyah, who had a dramatic rally here last year, losing the victory on the final stage after facing a plethora of punctures, left little to chance as he charged to a 50.9 second lead over second driver Alexey Lukyanuk. The Russian 2018 ERC champion spoke of stages that were too slippery to push, with his tyres giving him some trouble and admitting that he couldn’t do much about Nasser.
Third fastest at the end of the first loop of the second day was last year’s winner, Simos Galatariotis with this Skoda Fabia R5. Simos confessed that he had pushed slightly harder in comparison to Saturday’s stages, opting to run with only one spare tyre in the car, to save weight since he is used to avoiding the big rocks due to his experience of these mountain stages.
Galatariotis holds a 44.6 second gap from fourth-placed Chris Ingram. The ERC leader started the day carefully in Kapouras but turned the dials up for the next two stages, stealing a couple of seconds from Galatariotis, without changing the overall standing positions. He had trouble with hanging dust from the cars ahead and hopes to push for more in the afternoon loop.
On Sunday afternoon the cars will repeat the three morning stages. The battle concludes on the beachfront in Larnaca with the ceremonial Finish at 6pm.
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