The Second round of 2009 China Rally Championship, unveiled in the picturesque Yanqi Lake tourist resort in Huairou in Beijing city on July 8th-10th. Subaru Rally Team China(SRTC) sent a new Subaru Impreza WRX STI and three of 2006 versioned Subaru Impreza WRX STI Spec C for this rally.
Unfortunately, flying from Hong Kong to Beijing, SRTC’s Australian driver Dean Herridge had the misfortune to be seated three rows away from a passenger confirmed of being infected with H1N1 influenza virus. Although Herridge has not experienced any influenza symptoms, local health regulations have forced him be quarantined in his hotel room until July 10th, which is also the end of rally. After difficult contacting drivers and choicing, team finally had Simon Evans to be the replacement to compete for this round.
The stages of this rally are located at the mountain areas of Huairou District in Beijing City. There are totally 10 tarmac special stages with a total distance of 573.53km, of which 174.01km is for special stages.
The competition for Day 1 was quite fierce, especially among the overseas drivers and among the top 5 Chinese drivers. The gap between the overall first place and second place is only 3.1 seconds. The gap between SRTC Evans with previous Han Han is only 0.8 seconds.
SRTC’s team mate Li Wei drove well and stably but faced the problem of brake pads as the brake pads were too soft for him and he had to control speed. Although he got a second place among Chinses drivers, nearly one minute later than previous Han Han.
On Day two, battle between Han Han and Li Wei was fierce. Wei performed well and caught up close to Han Han, but last day’ s gap was too big for him to turn over. He eventually kept his second place to finish, with the gap reducing to 22.4 seconds from Chinese winner Han Han. New Zealand driver, Tony Green finished this event in 4th as highest among Subaru runners followed by Simon Evans who finished in 5th.
The third round of Chinese Rally Championship will be taken place at Fogang, Guangdong province from 28-30 August.
