PROTON’s PG Andersson drove to a commendable Asia Pacific Rally Championship (APRC) debut to clinch second overall in the Brother International Rally of Whangarei in New Zealand. Fighting back to reduce an overnight deficit of more than a minute as a result of a puncture, Andersson set fastest time on five of the final day’s eight special stages to finish second overall 28 seconds behind the Skoda Fabia S2000 of Chris Atkinson. A further two minutes behind was India’s Gaurav Gill in third place.
PROTON team mate and defending APRC champion Alister McRae meanwhile, finished fourth in the APRC class and fourth overall after enduring a difficult start to the rally in which by virtue of starting first played the role of road sweeper for the rest of the participants. Andersson’s APRC campaign on the other hand had gotten off to a brilliant start when he was fastest through special stage 1.
He however had a puncture in the next stage which lost him a minute and a half and demoting him to fourth in the APRC category. He however, fought back valiantly to finish the day in second place among the APRC contenders. Rally of Whangarei covered a total of 16 special stages over a competitive distance of 283.28km.
PROTON also enjoyed a clean sweep of the top three placings in the 2WD category with defending APRC 2WD champion Karamjit Singh taking top honours ahead of privateer Mike Young in another 1600cc Satria Neo and PROTON’s newly-signed young driver Kenneth Koh. Koh, in only his first international rally, also clinched second place in the APRC Junior category behind Young.
