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Bastia, 12 May, 2012 – The most exhausting, the longest and the most difficult – all of these three attributes go together well with the Corsica Rally, the fourth event of this year's IRC series. Jan Kopecký of ŠKODA Motorsport (factory team) finished second after a great fight with winner Dani Sordo, Andreas Mikkelsen of ŠKODA UK Motorsport in another factory Fabia Super 2000 came fifth to remain top of the IRC current standings, and a further two Fabia Super 2000s got to the TOP 10 when Sepp Wiegand and Hermann Gassner finished eighth and ninth, respectively.

Kopecký's performance was gradually getting better as the event progressed – he was fifth after Day 1 but climbed up the standings to second place on Day 2 and then put in his best performance in Corsica on Saturday when he won five stages to reduce the gap behind Sordo who, however, showed enough experience to defend his position until the end. Kopecký has thus repeated his last year's second place in Corsica.

Reviewing his own performance and the entire event, Kopecký said: "This rally was one of the most difficult events in my career so far. We did not make the best of starts but then we had some good luck, too. We did very well on both Friday and Saturday, and we only made a mistake in one of the stages. Coming second behind a top-class driver who has vast World Championship experience and beating a number of excellent drivers is a reason to be satisfied. We did our best to win here, putting in all we could."

His co-driver Pavel Dresler adds: "I am still a newcomer to this team, and I have never taken part in a rally as difficult as this one. It was exhausting, but I have gained a whole lot of experience that I am sure we will make use of later this season".

Copying its format of the 1980s and 1990s, this year's Corsica Rally was extremely challenging in terms of logistics, as it was scattered all over the island. A large number of transfers, over 300 special-stage kilometres and more than 750 liaison kilometres within 3 event days were a great challenge for all the crews and their teams.

IRC standings after four events – Drivers category:
1.    Andreas Mikkelsen/Ola Floene 71 points
2.    Jan Kopecký/Pavel Dresler 58 points
3.    Juho Hänninen/Mikko Markkula 43 points

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