After a quick 5-stage jaunt at Rallye Defi on Friday, the Zedrils are keeping the 2wd lead going into day 2.

With only 15 km of racing on Friday in the Montreal area, competitors were pushing hard to keep or gain positions and were all seconds apart on the leaderboard. Jan & Jody Zedril’s Mitsubishi had a 9 second lead over the Suzuki of Kocandrle\Brandt after stage one and grew that margin to 24 seconds by the end of the night.

Ken Block in his freshly-built uber-custom Mk2 Escort went off with a mechanical issue (wheel stopped when it hit the fender or “wheel bite”), then had to retire after continuing problems including a bad fuel pump. Here is a video of his off on stage 1

Update Ken Block in car video from above crash.

Overall leaders after day one are Richard/Ockwell, L’Estage/Richard and Comrie-Picard (ACP)/Durant.

Competitors without cars to repair had a good chance of getting, at most, 6 hours of sleep before the start of the grueling day 2 bsed out of Montpellier. The longest stages of the rally are in the morning so teams have to bring their A-game, because the afternoon stages are shorter and therefore harder to make up lost time.

Chevreuil, the third stage of day two, is nearly as long as the combined competitive stage total from day 1. After this stage, the Zedrils Lancer is holding its 2wd lead and have increased their margin over the Switf of Kocandrle\Brandt to over one minute, and nearly 4 minutes over trailing 3rd place 2wd team of Grochowski/Junnila in the VW Golf.

Check out the Zedril’s team page here

Image from http://www.flatovercrest.com

Update

11:00 EST:

An unofficial source (@reachdean) says Pat Richard is out with a broken gearbox, ACP is out with oil system issues, and Leo had brake problems and lost a lot of time. #cdnrally

The results after stage 12 show that Richard and ACP are out of the rally

The race for 2wd continues, as Grochowski/Junnila in the VW post a stage win on EC 12, Montpellier. However, their winning margin was a matter of seconds, which won’t take much out of their defecit to the Zedril’s which is now over 7 minutes.

Standings after stage 12 for overall: L’Estage/Richard, Henderson/Murphy (-2:45), Henderson/Murphy (-4:00). If L’Estage can keep his wits about him and avoid mechanical issues, it looks like the rally could be his. The same goes for the Zedrils going for the 2wd win!

Check out the Zedril’s team page here

After Stage 13, the song remains the same. L’Estage, Hendersen, Besner are the top 3 overall. However the 2wd race for 2nd place just got MUCH tighter. For an unknown reason, Kocandrle/Brandt in the Suzuki posted a 9:00 time (must have been stuck on stage for a while) for Stage 12, losing over 6 minutes. This dropped them to 3rd in 2wd giving up 2nd place to Grochowski/Junnila in the Golf. Because of what happened on stage 12, Kocandrle/Brandt is now 24 seconds behind Grochowski/Junnila.

This battle for 2nd place in 2wd will be the battle to watch as the rally continues!

Results have been posted for stages 14-17. The 2nd place battle for 2wd continues with Kocandrle reeling in Grochowski, stage by stage. On stage 14, Kocandrle had Grochowski by 1 second, and on stage 15 they had the exact same time of 2:28! (+3 sec on Zedrils) Kocandrle’s Suzuki gained 10 seconds on the Golf of Grochowski on stage 16, and another 8 seconds on stage 17, bringing him within FIVE seconds of the VW. There are four stages left, and it should be an amazing race to the finish!

Zedril Rally Sport’s Lancer doesn’t seem to be slowing down at all. They blazing the fastest 2wd times stage after stage, opening their lead to over 9 minutes.

After Jarnac Est (1), the top 3 overall haven’t changed much. L’Estage isn’t slowing down, and has increased his window to a 3 minute lead over Hendersen, and 4 minutes over Besner.

Update

5:13 EST:

Unofficial report from @cwoods87: No Besner on stage ss20 #cdnrally

That means 3rd place is up for grabs for either Losier (+6:37) or Hobbs (+6:41) or even Urlichich (+6:47)

L’Estage Wins at Rallye Defi!!

L’Estage/Richard were able to hold their lead for the remainder of Day 2, with Henderson/Murphey coming in 2nd overall. It was looking like Besner was going to take 3rd, until he retired with turbo problems after stage 19. Hobbs/Tremblay were able to take 3rd place overall as a result.

The Zedril’s ran an AMAZING event and held the lead in 2wd from beginning to end. Kocandrle/Brandt in the Suzuki Swift slowly but steadily were catching Grochowski/Junnila’s VW Golf and were eventually able to take 2nd place from them on stage 19.

In the PS class, Wright/Wright took 1st, followed by Deans/Burke and Ouellette/Ouellette. In PGT, it appears Schmidtke/Vokes were the only to finish, giving them 1st.

What a 2wd battle today! Time to go celebrate for the Zedril’s win!! Great job guys!

Check out the Zedril’s team page here