Despite receiving a 20-second penalty for a late check-out from Saturday morning service while his team rushed to complete a gearbox change, Erik Cais completed a dominant first victory over Marijan Griebel, winning by more than seven minutes.
Griebel was left to rue a lack of wet weather tyres as the conditions turned for the worse heading into Sunday’s second leg and adopted a cautious strategy to bring his Toksport WRT Peugeot 208 R2 home in a comfortable second position. A fresh downpour during SS9 meant that Cais took it relatively carefully as Saturday morning leader Miklós Csomós claimed the stage win.
Conditions were far worse on the next test which allowed Cais to pull away further from Griebel behind. Csomós then took a popular city stage win in Nyíregyháza to end the loop on a positive note. After going off the road on the opening day, Ohran Avciouglu returned in his Toksport Peugeot but alternator issues affected his speed.
The ERC Ladies’ Trophy title battle took a dramatic twist over the course of the morning, as points leader Nabila Tejpar’s run came to an abrupt end on SS10. The British driver ran wide and hit a tree, rolling over as a result, although she and co-driver Hugo Magalhães were uninjured. Bulgarian Stratieva therfore knew that a finish would secure a third ERC Ladies’ Trophy title.
Joy and despair: Nucita is provisional ERC Abarth Rally Cup champion as Polonski retires
Andrea Nucita is the provisional ERC Abarth Rally Cup champion for 2019 after Dariusz Poloński retired prior to the start of Rally Hungary’s eighth stage this morning.
Poloński effectively needed to win the one-make category for the Abarth 124 rally in Hungary with Nucita non-scoring in order to take the title and the 30,000 euros on offer to the champion.
However, Poloński’s exit due to a suspected oil pressure issue means it was Sicilian Nucita who takes the spoils, subject to confirmation of the results. Local driver Mátyás Nagy, a rival to Nucita and Poloński in the ERC2 category, did not start leg two following myriad problems on Saturday.