Kubica fastest on shortened day one in the Azores

Heavy rain entered this year’s SATA Rallye Açores and decided to mess with the stages a bit. That led to the cancellation of special stage 1 due to damage on the road, and special stage 2 was significantly shortened. In the end, organizers realized they ran out of kilometers for the proper leg, so they decided to merge today’s and tomorrow’s stages.

There was plenty of action today, despite the shorter itinerary. Robert Kubica was fastest in the qualifying, then again fastest on stages, and as a result he goes into overnight break carrying 9.7 seconds lead over Jan Kopecky, who is then followed, and followed very closely by Ricardo Moura. There is literally (almost) nothing separating Kopecky, Moura and Bernardo Sousa, so we are promised a great day of rallying tomorrow.