Lanzarote podium in the 42nd Orvecame-Isla de Lanzarote Rally that ended this Saturday afternoon in Arrecife. And at the top, the Yeray Lemes-Rogelio Peñate team, who scored their tenth victory in the home race with the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo, accompanied by the new Rally4 vehicles of the young Javier Cañada-Alejandro Rodríguez (Opel Corsa) and the veteran Juan Carlos de la Cruz, co-piloted by Aitor Cambeiro (Peugeot 208), second and third respectively in this last round of the Canary Islands Championship and the BP Las Palmas Championship, as well as the Lanzarote Island Championship.
Yeray and Rogelio finished Friday night in second place, after being overtaken by Rubén Curbelo-David Rivero with the Polo N5. But from the second stage of today, the Fuertwagen team moved into the lead and has controlled it until the end, adding the scratches of the six stages of this Saturday. In short, another resounding victory for Lemes and Peñate in Lanzarote.
With this triumph, Yeray Lemes has ten victories in the Lanzarote rally, making him the driver with the most first places, breaking the tie he had with former driver Jesús Machín, who was at the rally driving the organization's "zero car". In addition, he had not won with a Mitsubishi since 2010, after going through different mounts such as Porsche, Ferrari or with Hyundai, his previous victory in 2019.
This unusual podium in the 2021 Canary Islands Regional Championship has had the Rally4s of the Sport&You team, led by driver Emma Falcón, as protagonists after the resounding victory of Lemes and the Mitsu. Juan Carlos de la Cruz dominated the beginning of the rally, but the young Javi Cañada improved as he made kilometers and consolidated in second place, more than 2 minutes behind the winners and with 10 seconds ahead of De la Cruz. He also took the FALP Promotion Trophy.
Very good rally also for Adri Betancort-Rayco Santana, fourth with the Renault Megane, followed at a distance by Suso Lemes-Francisco Rosales with the Citroen C2 R2, also unbeatable with this fifth place overall. Camilo González-Jonathan Camacho with the Honda Civic climbed to sixth place, by only one tenth of a second ahead of the BMW 325 of Alvaro Caballero-Noé González, seventh.
About 34 teams out of the 54 that took the start managed to reach the finish line at the fairgrounds of Arrecife, where the arrival ceremony and final trophy presentation were scheduled, of an edition of the Orvecame-Lanzarote under the organization of the CD. Evesport and the support of the Cabildo de Lanzarote and the municipalities of the island where the test passed.
A tough Saturday morning
The first section of Saturday was characterized by the high number of vehicles withdrawn, mostly due to breakdowns, plus some incidents and punctures, plus the change of leadership from Curbelo to Lemes.
Lemes and Peñate went out on Saturday morning to cut differences and from the Tegoyo-Tías section began the attack and after TC3, La Candelaria-San Bartolomé, they already surpassed Curbelo-Rivero and took the lead of their rally by 2.9 seconds.
The Polo N5 team could not continue fighting for the victory, after puncturing in TC4, Haría-Los Valles, the longest of Saturday. The second pass through this section would be the TC-Plus and fatal again for Curbelo-Rivero, who had to stop again to change another tire, in the intermediate area very detrimental to the wheels due to the poor condition of the asphalt. A pity after having recovered from fifth to third place and already close to second. But this time they fell back to twelfth place after losing more than 4 minutes in the operation.
Toñín Suárez had it worse, first puncturing a rear wheel, changing it for the narrow spare and puncturing again in the link section, with the forced abandonment. As a curious fact, the only car in Regularity Sport, the Lancer GSR of Tomás González-Sebastián Santana, was also withdrawn. And about to finish the last section, team 55 of Jonay Fragiel-Marcos González went off the road with the Lupo.
It should also be noted that the only female team, Isabel Pérez-Taydía Santana, with the Saxo VTS, managed to finish the race.
Friday night stage
Rubén Curbelo-David Rivero had a good start, as they achieved the best time in the first night stage of the rally held this Friday. In the special of "Haría-Los Valles-El Mojón-Guatiza" of almost 20 km, they were the fastest with the VW Polo N5 of the Sport&You team, marking a time of 10:38.0, relegating to second place the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo of Yeray Lemes-Rogelio Peñate by 1.5 seconds, a priori the most favorite team of the rally.
The stage had fog as a special negative ally to add to the darkness of the Lanzarote night, with intervals that could benefit or harm the different teams, depending on how the wind blew. This inclement weather increased the thermal sensation of cold, which did not prevent a large attendance of public in the return of the night stages to the Orvecame-Isla de Lanzarote Rally.
Alejandro and Miguel Rodríguez were classified in third position with another Mitsubishi, while Aníbal Machín-Rubén Pérez had problems to finish the stage. Another of the favorites, Toñín Suárez-Gabriel Espino, did not do well in this special with the Porsche 911 GT3, with a pass in a curve even...
Among the new Rally4 vehicles, Juan Carlos de la Cruz-Aitor Cambeiro were fourth overall with the Peugeot 308, controlling the situation by 3.4 seconds over the Opel Corsa of the young Javier Cañada and Alejandro Rodríguez, the latter seventh best time of the stage. In the middle were the Renault Megane of Adri Betancort-Rayco Santana (sixth) and Oscar Curbelo-Felipe Perera, fifth overall. And the Opel Corsa of David Tenorio-Oliver Hernández penalized 10 seconds for touching one of the chicanes of the stage.
The stage was stopped for a few minutes due to the road exit of the BMW 325 of Luis Duque-Francisco Fernández, in the area of El Mojón. Both driver and co-driver were evacuated to the hospital and within a few hours were discharged and are already at home.
And due to breakdown were also Yacorá Betancort-Javier Fajardo (Opel Corsa) and Orlando Perdomo-Omar Hernández (Seat Ibiza), among others.
The teams that missed the event and did not show up for the verifications, held on Friday afternoon at the Recinto Ferial de Arrecife, were those of Alberto Monzón, Sergio Fuentes, Jonás Rodríguez, Néstor Luzardo, Adián Pérez, José Manuel de León and Ulises Montesdeoca (numbers 7, 10, 20, 36, 39, 40 and 60). That is to say, 54 of the 61 registered teams took the start.
The race started at 9 pm on Friday from the assistance park in Arrecife, with the presence of the new Minister of Sports of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, Alfredo Mendoza, who was in charge of giving the official start to the participants. He was accompanied by the presidents of the FCA and FALP federations, Benito Rodríguez and Miguel Angel Domínguez, together with members of the organization of the CD. Evesport.