Marcos Ligato has claimed his first win in the Production Car World Rally Championship at the wheel of a Subaru Impreza WRX STI for the first time since 2001.
The Argentine drove a near-perfect rally from start to finish on Brother Rally New Zealand and carved out a winning advantage of 5m50.8s over second-placed Subhan Aksa from Indonesia.
“It feels incredible to have won in New Zealand,” said Ligato. “We had a big advantage from the beginning so we didn’t have too much pressure after day one. The roads were very muddy and slippery so keeping the car on the road was very difficult. I would like to thank my team, my family and everybody who has helped us over the weekend. Now we want to win the last few events and become champions!”
Aksa drove a mature rally to claim his second consecutive PWRC podium finish in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX. The driver claimed a string of stage wins yesterday but adopted a cautious driving approach today in order to finish second and leave the fifth round of the support category with 18 championship points.
Claiming the third step of the podium in PWRC was Mexico’s Ricardo Trivino in a Impreza. “I am just glad to have finished this rally, it’s very enjoyable to drive here but it’s also a long and difficult rally. You need to be flat out a lot of the time,” commented Trivino.
Valeriy Gorban was on a charge throughout the final day of action in New Zealand. The Ukrainian was eager to catch Trivino in third and set five out of seven fastest stage times in order to try and catch the Mexican. The gap proved too much for Gorban, however, who was forced to settle with fourth place.
Gianluca Linari and Briton Louise Cook round off the PWRC leaderboard with Linari claiming fifth and Cook finishing sixth on her New Zealand debut.