Rifat Sungkar finished APRC New Caledonia round as a runner up!
Karamjit Singh in PROTON Satria Neo made overwhelming N2 victory

Round 3 of FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship (APRC), “Rally New Caledonia” (also Round 2 of Pacific cup) was held from 17-19 June around island’s capital, Numea. Pertamina Cusco Racing’s crew Rifat Sungkar(Indonesia)/Scott Beckwith(Australia) entered this event in Cusco built Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X. Sungkar made his first APRC victory on this event last year which was good sign for this year’s edition. Also three times APRC champion, Malaysian giant Karamjit Singh/Jason Farmer(New Zealand) again drove CUSCO built PROTON Satria Neo(Group N) continuing from last round in Queensland.

The host town of the rally, Numea saw heavy rain in many days in prior rally week which made bad road condition and even required to move the service park just before the rally start. The weather condition was getting improved once rally started, however there were number of wet pathces remained on those roads which made stages extremely slippery especially second day of Day 1 where used red soil road.The event was kicked by ceremonial start on 17 June followed by two loops of two short stages. Three loops of three stages were set on Saturday followed by other 6SS on Sunday.

As a measure of attack on wetty stages, team brought mud tyre for Sungkar on short stages on first day. This strategy worked well actually and Sungkar lead the event after four stages on the day. On following day (second day of Day1), many of crews became victims of extremely slippery condition of those red mud with wet. Even Sungkar faced to stack on SS6 and his co-driver, Beckwith had to push the machine to back on the road which costed around 1minutes and half. Sungkar, however, then set number of top 3 times including best time on final stage of the day and finished the day in 3rd. He continued the stable performance with setting top time while many drivers hit the trouble. With completing eventfull rally, Sungkar finished the event in second just behind of former WRC driver, Chris Atkinson. Gaining bonus points, Sungkar is standing on 4th in the championship. Moreover, on Pacific Cup, he lead the championship with 13 point margin to the rally winner Atkinson. Both drivers are going to do single combat for the title on next and final round.

 

 

 

Meanwhile, Singh took maximum advantage of his rich experience, and thank to stable performance of the machine on such a difficult condition, he set steady time, while many of high powered 4WD machine withdrawn from the rally. He won among his class with comfortable margin, and ranked on 10th even overall result with given APRC points.

 

 

Next round of APRC, round 4 “Rally of Whangarei” will be held from 15-17 July, around Whangarei, north island of New Zealand.