Subaru at the first attempt!

It was a perfect start for the SUBARU RALLY TEAM SPAIN in the Spanish Gravel Rally Championship with Brice Tirabassi-Fabrice Gordon's Impreza Prodrive scoring an extraordinary victory in Palma del Rio, achieved after leading the event from the start. This is a fantastic result for the works rally team of Subaru España, which in its debut appearance has already shown that it's going to be among the top contenders of the series.

Brice showed from the first both his driving skills and the competitiveness of the Impreza Prodrive setting the best time in the initial stage, the very twisty A at seven kilometres long, where the SUBARU RALLY TEAM SPAIN driver was no less than 4.2 seconds quicker than his closest follower, the C2 proto 4x4 of Dani Solá, and 5 seconds ahead of the EVO IX of Xevi Pons.

The current Spanish Gravel Champion would become in the second section the main rival to Tirabassi, after Solá was delayed by mechanical problems in his Citroen that would force him into retirement in the first service park of the day. The Subaru of Tirabassi-Gordon arrived here in first position, after another stage win on the long and faster section B, slightly more than 17 kilometres long with top speeds over 200 km/h, where Brice increased his advantage on Pons to 13.3 seconds.

The second part of the rally was a repetition of the first two sections, and ended with a stage win for Tirabassi on A2 and one for Pons on B2, with the gap between the two drivers practically unchanged, with the Subaru of the French driver ahead of the Mitsubishi of the Catalan.

The third running of the stages A and B completed the morning part of the rally, with Tirabassi and Gordon managing to preserve their lead, after scoring yet another fastest time in the twisty stage A, and resisting Pons's strong assault in the fast B, losing only 3.9 seconds, so they arrived at the midday service park still leading by 7.8 seconds.

In the afternoon, the rally was completed with two passages over the short superspecial stage, at just one kilometre, and two runs over the nine kilometre long stage C. Pons was increasing the pressure, but Tirabassi stayed at the top after the first runs, although his advantage was cut down to just 2.4 seconds before the last run on both stages that would close the event. Here the driver of the SUBARU RALLY TEAM SPAIN not only did not lose any more time but actually increased his lead, closing the rally with a stage win in the second run on section C that confirmed his win.

The final outcome was, therefore, extreme satisfaction for all the members of the SUBARU RALLY TEAM SPAIN. Both the driver, Brice Tirabassi, and his co-driver, Fabrice Gordon, the car and the technical staff of KRS Motor Events, with Enrique García Ojeda at the helm, demonstrated their high level of competitiveness, being on top from the beginning of the event, in spite of this being their first rally and having to fight against drivers, cars and teams with far more experience in the Spanish Gravel Rally Championship. The demonstration given in Palma del Rio by Tirabassi-Gordon and the Subaru Impreza Prodrive of KRS Motor Events now makes the rally team of Subaru España one of the favourites for the Gravel Championship, the next round of which will be fought at the end of May in Guijuelo, near Salamanca.

Brice Tirabassi's own words: "I am very happy to win in Spain at the first attempt. We have had a great fight with Xevi Pons but at the end we have managed to have the last word and it is a very good augury for the rest of the season."

16 March 2009