José Antonio Suárez - Piloto de Rallyes

04/08/2012 RALLY FINLAND
Great fourth position for José Antonio Suárez and Cándido Carrera.

José Antonio Suárez, codriven by Cándido Carrera, finished fourth in the WRC Academy at the Rally of Finland, third event of the FIA series for young drivers in the World Rally championship.

Finland was the third consecutive rally to be run on gravel and completed the first half of the WRC Academy 2012 schedule, of which the three remaining dates will be run on tarmac, the most favoured surface for José Antonio Suárez. Bearing this in mind, the young Spaniard's main target was to finish and score as many points as possible. This he achieved after a rally in which he has confirmed the great progress he's made on gravel, adding another fastest stage time to the one already taken in Greece and staying in the fight for the podium positions to the end.

José Antonio was seventh at the end of the short Thursday leg, with three stages, where he showed his speed with a fastest time on the second stage which gave him a point in the championship.

On Friday eight more stages were run and the Spanish driver was, from the start, in the fight for the top positions. Scoring stages times that were always among the fastest, José Antonio completed the day in fifth position, just 12 seconds behind Tidemand, who was second.

The rally was completed on Saturday with the final five stages and José Antonio give his all to get on the podium. Despite a slight impact that meant he had to do the second to last stage with a bent rear axle, the Spaniard gained yet another position to be ulimately fourth, scoring some very important points that keep him fifth overall in the WRC Academy standings.

The fourth place scored in Finland is the third good result on gravel for José Antonio Suárez. This allows him to end the first half of the season with a total of 34 points when at this time last year he only had one. A spectacular progression that shows how José Antonio is making good use of the experience gathered last season on his maiden WRC campaign, always having better pace on gravel while avoiding mistakes. Thanks to this the young Spaniard will face the second half of the season, which will be wholly run on tarmac, with chances to fight for the top positions in the WRC Academy, the next event of which will be the Rally of Germany, to be run from the 24th to the 26th of August.

WRC Academy Rally Finlandia
1 Evans-Pugh 2:34:07.7
2 Tidemand-Skjaermoen 55.3
3 Reeves-Smyth 1:27.4
4 J.A.Suárez-C.Carrera 2:14.8
5 MacCrone-Loudon 3:02.0
6 Fisher-Barrit 40:08.9
7 Duplessis-Kihurani 7:18.5
8 Silva-Magalhaes 13:38.0
9 HaighSmith-Parry 30:01.5

WRC Academy Standings
1 Evans 70 points
2 Reeves 52 points
3 Fisher 49 points
4 Tidemand 41 points
5 J.A.Suárez 34 points
6 MacCrone 25 points
7 Van der Marel 18 points
8 Duplessis 16 points
9 Ahlin 11 points
10 Silva 10 points