The Frigyes Turán - Gábor Zsiros duo finished on the 7th place on the legendary Rallye Sanremo scoring six Intercontinental Rally Challenge points.

The Frigyes Turán - Gábor Zsiros duo finished on the 7th place on the legendary Rallye Sanremo scoring six IRC points. According to the experts local experience is the decisive factor on the serpentines of the race. And for the record: it was Frici and Gabi?s first race here - so it is not a coincidence that even the Italians congratulated them!
?It was a really hard job...?, sighed Frici in the finish line, and all the people around them agreed, especially his navigator, Gabi.
For the duo, two very long and tiring days are over, but every kilometer covered was worth it since they finished the race in Sanremo with an exquisite success - on the 7th place.
?We drove on unprecedentedly difficult stages, those who have not raced here before cannot imagine, how hard it is. We enjoyed the weekend to the fullest. It was an elevating feeling when we cropped up from behind a hill, the broadcasting helicopter was already expecting us, and then it followed us through that passage. We are really happy that we were quick, and we were steadily speeding up - and we are absolutely pleased with the result, we deserved this success. Although I was really surprised that even the Italians came by and congratulated. They said that taking into consideration that we had had no preliminary experience with these stages, our results were outstanding,? explained Frici.
These words of appreciation are underpinned with the fact that in certain moments of the race the top ten included seven Italian duos (meaning that the ones who already ?drove on these roads? were in winning positions), and at the end five teams maintained their places among the best.
?The most sensational feeling was the night race, despite of our technical problem. I could have done that race again in the end! Those 44 kilometers were full of spectators, camp-fires all along the road, and it required tremendous amount of concentration due to its length. We discussed with Gabi how great it would be to have such stages at home. And talking about Gabi, I have to mention that an excellent navigator was essential for this race, and Gabi accomplished his tasks perfectly on both racing days?, said Frici adding that he had enjoyed also the Saturday rush, especially the last three stages when the car had not overheated. Because on the first two stages the technical problems known from the previous night returned (on the last six kilometers of the 44 kilometers long race the cooling water and the lubrication oil overheated - they did not even know whether they can make it to the service station). In spite of the complications the racers managed to deaerate the cooling system after the second stage on Saturday and after that they could finally drive the way they wished and they could speed up considerably.
?We were extremely happy about the seventh place, the team was also pleased, including the engineers of Hankook tire factory who found out quite a number of figures about their newly developed tires,? said Frici.
And what does the team leader, the Norwegian world champion, Petter Solberg have to add to all of these whose team provided the Ford Fiesta S2000 for the weekend?
?I am happy that I could work with Frici and Gabi. It was an impossibly tough race with a successful finish, which shows that it does make sense to speak about joint work in the future. All my congratulations to the boys!? expressed his views Petter Solberg.
Rallye Sanremo
Final score: 1. Basso, Mitia (Italian, Ford Fiesta S2000) 1:20:04.3, 2. Kopecký, Dresler (Czech, Škoda Fabia S2000) 10.1 s l., 3. Perico, Carrara (Italian, Peugeot 207 S2000) 1:07.1 min l., ...7. Frigyes Turán, Gábor Zsiros (Hungarian, Ford Fiesta S2000) 3:31.9 min l.
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