Ascania Racing preview

Mentos Ascania Racing on Rally de Portugal

24-27 march 2011 Mentos Ascania Racing is starting new experience - three crews are going to take a part in the 2nd stage of P-WRC 2011, Vodafon Rally de Portugal. For our team Portugal race is the first gravel rally in this year season.

Just a week before the rally Mentos Ascania Racing find out bad news. Evgeniy Leonov skips Rally de Portugal because of health reasons - Sergey Larens will be the co-driver of Valeriy Gorban. "We very appreciate Sergey's professional skills, - says Gorban. - And thereby we proposed him to be a co-driver at this race. We wish Evgeniy Leonov all the very best and are waiting for his return". Two other crews - Oleksandr Saliuk-Pavel Cherepin and Aleksey Kikireshko-Vadim Chernega - are looking forward Vodafon Rally de Portugal without any changes.

This year's event will include an all-new superspecial stage in the country's capital, Lisbon. Besides pre-event shakedown moving forward to Wednesday - thereby rally's schedule going to be long and eventful.

Major battle is planned for three days - from Friday till Sunday. Portugal's stages, which include a mixture of open roads and technical and narrow sections, has abrasive surface. This puts the onus on tyre wear although the earlier March date (Vodafone Rally de Portugal ran in late May in 2010) means this might not be as apparent as in recent years.

Mentos Ascania Racing has the same goal for Vodafon Rally de Portugal as for previous Rally Sweden - we are going to do our best, came through all four days without technical problems, reach the finish and gain more experience of world rallying.

-source: ascania rcing