Marcos González and Eduardo González (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX) have achieved a positive third place in the XII Gran Canaria Gravel Rally. In the race where they premiered their record in terms of absolute victories last year, this time they came to occupy the second place, but a stone on the penultimate stage ended up leaving them in that final position.
"It's a good result, although the motto in the team was to reach the finish line and do all the kilometers of this rally. Nothing more," explains the driver from Haría. The objective has been achieved despite the fact that the race started uphill from the recognitions themselves. The delay with respect to the initially planned schedule meant that, for scheduling reasons, Eduardo González could not recognize the entire itinerary with Marcos. A huge setback for the Gran Canaria co-driver, especially because he had to make the notes of 'Pozo Izquierdo-Sardina' based on scraps from other participations, precisely the section that was done three times in the afternoon and in both directions.
Before reaching those two final sections, Marcos and Eduardo had been consolidating themselves in the upper part of the classification of this XII Gran Canaria Gravel Rally. Always among the top three teams in the first four sections, they were following in the footsteps of Juani Santana-José Manuel Pérez, owner at that time of the second place. And this despite the fact that they had not been in the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX since November of last year.
Pozo Izquierdo arrived and with it the first difficulties when trying to improvise in the face of what they were finding. "We made some notes with old rally and slalom sections that Edu had done here, but in different versions. Thanks to the great work he did, we were able to complete and correct as much as we could, but in some points we had to discover the secrets of the section. In a hairpin where I thought there wouldn't be so much loose gravel, we spun and lost a lot of time," explains Marcos, who, however, accessed the second position in this seventh section after Santana's abandonment.
With a lead of 13'' over Juan Carlos Quintana-Yeray Mujica, the problems arrived for the Lanzarote native in the eighth special when he could not avoid a stone that burst the front right suspension, broke the rim and punctured the tire. "It was at the end and thanks to that we didn't lose the second position. In the assistance we repaired what we could, but not the shock absorber, so we suffered a lot in the last section. In those conditions, the best thing was to lower the intensity and look for the finish line, which, after all, was what we came to Gran Canaria for."
Finally, third position in this first round of the Las Palmas provincial championship that the Distribuciones Viera team won last season. After this rally, it is time to turn the spotlight back to the Peninsula and that Bk RMC 2014 that will hold a new round, the fourth, again in El Bierzo, but now on asphalt. It will be on July 25 and 26.
