Bruno Magalhães, driving a Peugeot Sport Portugal 207 Super 2000, has gone fastest in shakedown for Rally Islas Canarias El Corte Inglés, round two of the 2011 Intercontinental Rally Challenge.
The Lisbon driver, fifth on this event in 2011, set a time of 1m27.7s on the 2.55-kilometre test based south of the service park in Las Palmas.
In total the 30-year-old completed seven timed runs and ended up two-tenths of a second faster than Škoda UK Motorsport’s Andreas Mikkelsen, who also tackled the stage seven times.
Factory Škoda driver Jan Kopecký, the winner of this event last season, was third fastest after completing just four runs.
Škoda BFO Rally Team’s Freddy Loix set the fourth fastest time with fellow Belgian Thierry Neuville fifth in his Team Peugeot Belgium-Luxembourg 207, a performance that impressed his team boss Marc van Dalen.
“Thierry was the fastest driver after the first pass and this is significant,” said van Dalen. “The stage was not completely representative of the rally so we had to think about the set-up. But everything was very good and we worked through our plan.”
Peugeot UK’s Guy Wilks was sixth quickest with defending IRC champion Juho Hänninen seventh in the second works Škoda. Rallye Monte-Carlo winner Bryan Bouffier was eighth fastest in his Peugeot 207.
“We had a good test on Monday and I was happy with what we did in shakedown,” said Hänninen.
Giandomenico Basso was the fastest PROTON driver in 11th overall. Jose Barrios was the top IRC Production Cup driver in his Subaru Impreza, while Joan Vinyes led the IRC 2WD Cup runners.