Rally-Driver.com: NEW MITSUBISHI RACING LANCER WINS MAIDEN COMPETITION

NEW MITSUBISHI RACING LANCER WINS MAIDEN COMPETITION
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Elton Murphy on 07 November, 2008 03:44:00
 
*Mitsubishi  Racing Lancer wins on its maiden competition	*Peterhansel 
impressed by the new vehicle’s performance	*Further  testing to be carried out
in Portugal
New  car found to be perfectly reliable
A polished performance from Stéphane Peterhansel/Jean-Paul Cottret (France)
and everyone at Team Repsol Mitsubishi Ralliart on this weekend's Baja
Portalegre 500 has taken the brand new Racing Lancer to its first victory,
straight from the box. Mitsubishi's latest cross-country rally car, which will
take over from the successful Pajero/Montero Evolution on next January's Dakar,
ran perfectly reliably throughout the three-day Portuguese event to win by the
margin of 4 minutes 3 seconds after 515.16km of stages.
What counted possibly more than the final result, however, is the fact that the
team was able to profit from the final round of the 2008 FIA Cup for
Cross-Country Bajas to validate recent development work on the new car in the
specific conditions of the fast, twisty mountain tracks near Portalegre.
A team effort
The Racing Lancer also covered some 5,000km in southern Morocco shortly before
the start of this weekend's competition and Team Director Dominique Serieys
(France) is particularly pleased with the outcome of this solid, long-term
groundwork:
"Today's result rounds off another successful season for Team Repsol Mitsubishi
Ralliart which ends 2008 with three wins and two second places to its name.
Everyone has done a tremendous job this year. That includes the staff at MMSP,
the people at MMC who look after the engines and, of course, our four crews. It
was Stéphane who took the spoils today, but Nani Roma (Spain), Luc Alphand
(France) and Hiroshi Masuoka (Japan) have all played vital roles, too."
This weekend saw Stéphane Peterhansel and his co-driver Jean-Paul Cottret
recover from a harmless spin on Friday's super-special and a puncture on
Saturday morning's SS2 to pull more than four minutes clear at the top of the
leaderboard by the end of Day 2.
A quick, yet safe pace then enabled the French pair to come through this
morning's dryer but equally tricky 110km stage to kick off the Racing Lancer's
competition career on a high note. "After more than a year of hard work to make
the Racing Lancer as competitive as it is today, it is a fitting reward for
everyone in the team to have kicked off the new car's scorecard with a victory
here in Portugal," observed the French driver. "It was an honour for me to be
chosen by Mitsubishi to give the Racing Lancer its first outing, and it's nice
to have succeeded in paying back that confidence with a win." Having steered the
petrol-powered Pajero/Montero Evolution MPR13 to victory on September's PAX
Rally, which visited the same part of Portugal as this weekend's Baja, Stéphane
Peterhansel is ideally qualified to compare the performance of the Racing Lancer
with that of its predecessor.
Impressive areas of the Racing Lancer
"I was especially impressed by two things over the past three days," he
reported. "The first concerns the engine: the new 3-litre V6 marks a big
improvement in all areas, but it is especially strong out of the slower turns.
You can feel the torque and acceleration of the turbo-diesel powerplant pull you
through the corner and give you the speed for the next straight. The car's other
main strength is its chassis. An event like the Portuguese Baja calls for a
specific configuration and we essentially defined a basic set-up for the weekend
by extrapolating from what we learned in Morocco. Those settings worked
extremely well, and I was pleasantly surprised by the ability of the suspension
to soak up the terrain, as well as by the front-end's directional precision."
"Although this event was short, the conditions turned out to be quite varied,
and that was obviously positive for our mission here in Portugal," added
co-driver Jean-Paul Cottret, "The terrain was essentially twisty, but quite fast
and very delicate, too, so we were able to establish some good benchmarks. We
also succeeded in keeping to the initial game plan to win with a big enough
margin to cover a possible puncture on the final day."
Preparations  for Dakar
Team Repsol Mitsubishi Ralliart will remain in Portugal after the Baja
Portalegre 500 for a little further testing before spending time in Spain, for
engine calibration work at high altitude.
With the 2009 Dakar fast approaching, the car which contested this weekend's
event will continue to be used for testing duty, while the official shakedown of
the four cars currently under construction for the rally itself will take place
in France (Le Creusot), on December 15, before their transport to South America
by plane five days later.
Standings
Leg 3 (Sunday November 3, 2008)
FINAL    OVERALL CLASSIFICATION
Pos
Driver
Nat
Vehicle
Cat
Total
Diff
Co-Driver
Time
Leader
1
Stephane    Peterhansel
F
MITSUBISHI RACING    LANCER
T1.2
06:11:48
**:**:**.*
Jean-Paul    Cottret
F
2
Filipe    Campos
P
BMW X3
T1.2
06:15:51
04:03
Jaime    Baptista
P
3
Miguel    Barbosa
P
BMW X3
T1.2
06:22:25
10:37
Luis    Ramalho
P
4
Tonnie    Van Deijne
NL
MITSUBISHI L200    EVO
T1.1
06:35:50
24:02:00
Wouter    Van Deijne
NL
5
Pedro    Grancha
P
NISSAN NAVARA    OFF ROAD
T1.1
06:37:06
25:18:00
Paulo    Primaz
P
6
Ricardo    Leal dos Santos
P
BMW X5
T1.2
06:38:39
26:51:00
Joao    Luz
P
7
Miroslav    Zapletal
CZ
MITSUBISHI L200
T1.1
06:40:44
28:56:00
Tomas    Ourednicek
NL
8
Joao    Ramos
P
TOYOTA RAV 4
T1.2
06:47:52
36:04:00
Jesus    Vitor
P
9
Pedro    Gameiro
P
NISSAN NAVARA
T2.2
06:53:22
41:34:00
Manuel    Dominguez
P
10
Rui    Sousa
P
ISUZU D-MAX
T2.2
06:58:23
46:35:00
Carlos    Silva
P
11
Bernando    Moniz da Maia
P
BMW X3
T1.2
07:00:11
48:23:00
Joana    Sotto-Mayor
P
12
Jose    Gameiro
P
NISSAN NAVARA
T1.1
07:07:22
55:34:00
Antonio    Saraiva
P
13
Francesc    Termens
E
MITSUBISHI MONTERO
T2.2
07:14:37
01:02:49
Alberto    Pascual
E
14
Majed    Al-Ghamdi
KSA
MITSUBISHI PAJERO
T2.2
07:15:06
01:03:18
Nicola    Arena
I
15
Karoly    Fazekas
HON
BMW X5
T1.1
07:17:10
01:05:22
Albert    Horn
HON
16
Santiago Anglada
E
MITSUBISHI L200
T1.2
07:17:29
01:05:41
Enric    Oller
E
17
Ilya    Kuznetsov
RUS
MITSUBISHI L201
T1.1
07:18:23
01:06:35
Andrey    Neshin
RUS
18
Manuel Plaza
E
MITSUBISHI L200
T1.2
07:19:18
01:07:30
Marcos    De Quinto
E
19
Pedro    Nunes
P
MITSUBISHI PAJERO
T2.2
07:22:10
01:10:22
Paulo    Torres
P
20
Edgar    Condenso
P
ISUZU D-MAX
T2.2
07:23:47
01:11:59
Nuno    Silva
P
25
Josep    Vendrell
E
MITSUBISHI MONTERO    EVO CUP
T2.2
07:36:32
01:24:44
Joan    Soler
E
26
Julian    Vera
E
MITSUBISHI MONTERO    EVO CUP
T2.2
07:37:03
01:25:15
Marcos    Martinez
E
33
Mario    Lucas
P
MITSUBISHI MONTERO
T2.2
07:43:28
01:31:40
Paulo    Caiado
P
B=BELGIUM    / CZ=CZECH REPUBLIC /    F=FRANCE / HON=HUNGARY /    I=ITALY
POL=POLAND / P=PORTUGAL    / RUS=RUSSIA / KSA=SAUDI ARABIA / E=SPAIN