Proton Finishes 4th In Australian Rally

Alister McRae and co-driver Bill Hayes braved the odds to fend off a series of misfortunes on the third and final day of the International Rally of Queensland to give PROTON a strong fourth place finish in what is considered the strongest field in the Asia Pacific rally championship in recent years.

Beginning the day with an eight second advantage over Mitsubishi’s Gaurav Gill, the pair was forced to relinquish the rally when the Proton Satria Neo S2000’s engine began misfiring after a water crossing in one of the day’s seven special stages. 

Their charge back to the top was dealt an even serious blow when they were forced to slow down considerably as a result of a broken drive shaft over 50km of the last three special stages of the rally, causing them to lose more time. Despite this, they managed to hang on to 4th place in front of a charging Rifat Sungkar of Indonesia, in a Mitsubishi Evolution 10. 

"With no service interval, we were forced to slow down and nurse the car to the finish. It was a tough event, one that presented us with a lot of challenges. McRae and I are obviously disappointed in not being able to secure a podium finish but considering the circumstances, finishing fourth at least sees us heading to the next APRC round with valuable championship points," said Hayes. 

Rejoining the final day of the rally after an early retirement on day two, PROTON team mate Chris Atkinson endured a second electrical failure which ended his rally. 

The rally was won by British driver Mark Higgins, who finished 16 seconds ahead of Gill, while in third place was Japanese driver Katsuhiko Taguchi. 

"It was a hard fought rally. While we were hoping for a better result after a strong start, fourth place amidst an unfortunate last day will nevertheless go a long way in extending our position in the overall manufacturer’s championship, with full points on Leg 1 and some good points on Leg 2 with a 4th overall and 1st in Class 2" said Datuk Abdul Razak Dawood, the head of PROTON Motorsports. 

"Credit goes to Alister and Bill who were able to use all their experience to steer the car to the finish. The Satria Neo S2000 has clearly demonstrated that it has good pace and performance, and this is something we will work to further build on in our fight for the championship." 

Another consolation for PROTON was the fact that its 1600cc group N Satria Neos finished 9th and 11th overall in the rally, and 1st and 2nd in class at the hands of Karamjit Singh and Proton Cusco Rally Team mate Akira Bamba.-paddocktalk.com

Quotes:Chris Atkinson said:“We’re all disappointed with what happened in Queensland. We showed such tremendous pace early on, but it wasn’t to be. This can be a tough sport sometimes. The positives from here are the way the cars were running: we were one-two without too much trouble. Just looking at the times we were doing in the superspecials compared with last year, we’ve pulled five seconds out of some of the guys, in just a couple of kilometres. That’s a real step for PROTON. The suspension and engine are really coming together, which makes it all the more frustrating that we couldn’t make this one stick. Obviously, it’s a tough one for me, this being my home event. We had some good support out there on the stages. This was a big rally for me and the team. It’s just a shame we couldn’t put it together to back up the win in Malaysia.” 

Alister McRae said:“At the end of the opening day, things were looking good for Bill [Hayes, co-drive] and I. We’d had an electrical issue of our own on the opening day, which had cost us 50 seconds, but we’d battled back and we were leading. I was happy with that. We hadn’t had to risk everything to get the time back, so I was pretty confident for the next day. It felt like we could control the event and be in a good position to take the win. When we had the alternator problem on the next day, fourth was the result. Championship-wise, the results haven’t shaken out too badly for us, so we’re still in the fight for this year’s title – and, again, the car is showing real potential. We had the speed to win this rally, but it just got away from us.” 

Datuk Abdul Razak Dawood (Head of PROTON Motorsports) said:“This was a hard-fought rally. While we were hoping for a better result, fourth place amid an unfortunate last day will, nevertheless, go a long way to extending our position in the manufacturers’ championship. Alister [McRae] did an exceptional job in not dropping more time while nursing the car home. He takes first-placed points from day one and a fourth overall today – and we also saw a class win for Gunaseelan Rajoo (MYS) in his PROTON.”

Chris Mellors (team principal) said:“The alternators on both cars were overcharging and causing an electrical issue in the cars. We homologated new parts to cure this problem, but obviously we’re going to go back to the UK to find a solution. I can’t tell you how much frustration there is in the team. Like the boys have said, this one was there for the taking. Neither of them was being silly or pushing too hard and we were taking time out of the rest of the drivers in the rally. The engine modifications have worked well here, there’s plenty of torque and power lower down in the rev range; watching the cars coming out of hairpins, it just pulls and pulls. We had absolutely no problems in testing or in any of the pre-event work we did, but it seems when we put the numbers on the doors, there’s something to deal with. Looking at the times we were setting this weekend, compared with those stages 12 months ago, the progression we have made with the car is terrific. We’ll be working on the other issues immediately.” -rallybuzz.com

Event dataRound: 2/6, FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship
Based: Caloundra, Sunshine Coast
Stages: 19
Surface: gravel
Liaison distance: 515.93km
Competitive distance: 230.79km
Total distance: 733.65km
Conditions: 23 degrees and sunny
Day one leader: Alister McRaeWinner: Mark Higgins (GB)