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ŠKODA completes a hattrick of victories also in the Drivers category of the IRC
04.11.2012
ŠKODA has won another rally championship title - A. Mikkelsen & O. Floene in a factory ŠKODA Fabia Super 2000 have become this year´s IRC champions.
ŠKODA celebrated the overall victory in the Manufacturers category already at the previous event in San Remo and today the brand has completed a hattrick of doubles after dominating both categories without a break since 2010. This year has seen ŠKODA win also the European Championship (Hänninen & Markkula) and, for the first time in history, the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship (APRC) in which the brand won both the Manufacturers and the Drivers (Atkinson & Prevot) categories, too. Furthermore, ŠKODA has already won six national championships this year.
Highlighting the brand´s achievements in various championships, Head of ŠKODA´s motorsport activities Michal Hrabánek says: “This year´s results have undoubtedly decorated the history of ŠKODA´s motorsport activities. We have achieved a hattrick of victories in both the Manufacturers and the Drivers categories of the IRC to become the most successful brand in the entire history of the IRC. We are enormously pleased to have won the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship for the first time, because the local markets are of vital importance for ŠKODA´s future. The European Championship title and six national championship titles show that the whole ŠKODA Fabia Super 2000 project is a success in the long term. I´d like to thank all those who have been involved in this project, whether at the beginning or later on. We all appreciate these achievements a great deal. We have added some more golden lines to the curriculum vitae of the ŠKODA Fabia Super 2000.”
Andreas Mikkelsen has become the first driver in history to have won the IRC title twice in a row. He has sealed his success by coming second in the final rally of this year´s IRC that took place in Cyprus. Driving a factory ŠKODA Fabia Super 2000, he has appeared in 11 events of this series to win two (Azores Islands, Romania). For the fourth consecutive time, Jan Kopecký of ŠKODA Motorsport is the Prince Royal of the IRC – the Czech driver has appeared in six events to win two for ŠKODA, in the Canary Islands and Sicily. The dominance of ŠKODA Fabia Super 2000s in this year´s IRC has been sealed by Kopecký´s teammate Juho Hänninen who has won three events (Ireland, Belgium, Czech Republic) and finished third overall although he has only appeared in four events of this championship this year.
ŠKODA won its third consecutive IRC title this year to become the most successful brand in the history of this championship, and this year also saw a third consecutive victory by a factory crew in a ŠKODA Fabia Super 2000 in the Drivers category (Juho Hänninen & Mikko Markkula in 2010 and Andreas Mikkelsen & Ola Floene in 2011 and 2012). Hänninen & Markkula won this year´s European Championship to become the only crew worldwide to have won the IRC, the World Championship (SWRC) and the European Championship. Jan Kopecký & Pavel Dresler (factory crew) triumphed in the Czech Championship and drivers of ŠKODA Fabia Super 2000s won national rally championship titles in Austria (Raimund Baumschlager), Germany (Mark Wallenwein), Slovenia (Aleks Humar), Turkey (Luca Rossetti) and Bulgaria (Dimitar Iliev).
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