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Double Top-Ten For DMACK’s WRC Cars In Monte
DMACK kicked off its third year in the FIA World Rally Championship with a sparkling double top-ten finish on the season-opening Rallye Monte Carlo. Its Czech driver Martin Prokop took a stunning seventh place and was followed home by Michał Kościuszko in tenth on his debut for the Lotos manufacturer team – both drivers using world rally cars.
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The ultra-tough event saw DMACK launch its new range of tyres for 2013 but the wild winter conditions meant studded snow tyres were predominantly used by drivers throughout the demanding four-day event.
DMACK competitors had four different tyres on tap when the event launched into action on Wednesday morning from Valence in southern France. A new evolution of the DMT-RC asphalt tyre was available in both extra soft and soft compounds alongside studded and un-studded DMT-ICE asphalt snow tyres.
However, the tricky conditions, which saw snow, slush and ice on virtually every stage of the event, meant that the studded DMT-ICE was the tyre of choice to deliver a successful mix of performance and safety on the difficult mountain roads.
Every DMACK snow tyre has an aggressive winter pattern with special sipes to enhance grip in freezing conditions and the studded tyre is equipped with 220 metal pins, each with 2mm protrusion, to bite into frozen ice. But the mix of weather and road conditions meant tyre strategy was always a best guess.
Tyre choice throughout the rally was never ideal and always a compromise. Drivers had no option but to use their studded tyres on dry asphalt sections of stage, which ripped out or damaged some studs, before running on the snow-covered sections. Many resorted to crossing patterns with similar tyres used on opposite diagonal corners of the car in a bid to maximise performance throughout a loop of stages.
Some tests on Thursday and Friday were heavily laden with snow, with near-perfect winter conditions enjoyed by competitors. But today’s final runs through the iconic Col de Turini mountain pass saw many crews reporting some of the toughest driving conditions they had ever experienced. Snow, slush and ice combined to slow cars to crawling speeds as drivers tip-toed their way through the 23.54km stage – which eventually claimed three top runners.
Prokop kept his cool in the freezing conditions and powered his Ford Fiesta RS WRC up to seventh position as others fell by the wayside. Kościuszko was slowed on the first day with an engine misfire but his Motorsport Italia-run MINI WRC climbed the leaderboard and safely into the top-ten by the end of the event.
The DMACK team now switches to winter gravel rallies as Finn Jari Ketomaa takes on Rally Liepaja-Ventspils, the second round of the FIA European Rally Championship on 1-3 February in Latvia. Ketomaa is then joined by Eyvind Brynildsen in a two-car DMACK team on the next round of the world championship at Rally Sweden.
Dick Cormack, DMACK motorsport director, said: “This event delivered some of the toughest winter conditions we’ve ever seen and it’s been a major challenge for our asphalt snow tyres. We’re really happy with their results in terms of both performance and stud retention, and they’ve given our drivers the confidence to complete such a tough event. It’s a shame we weren’t able to put our newly-developed asphalt tyres to the test as they performed extremely well in pre-event preparations but it’s clear we’ve made some significant steps forward already this year.”
PaddockTalk Perspective
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Also in WRC Rally News 2010: |
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