2012 Asia-Pacific Rally Championship

The 2012 Asia-Pacific Rally Championship season is an international rally championship sanctioned by the FIA. The championship is contested by a combination of regulations with Group N competing directly against Super 2000 cars for points. Australian driver Chris Atkinson won the championship he narrowly lost the previous year, beating the Proton R3 Rally Team he raced for in 2011. His Škoda Fabia won the Rally of Whangarei as well as his home event the International Rally of Queensland as well as finishing second in New Caledonia, Malaysia and China, building up a lead his 2011 teammate and defending champion Alister McRae could not catch once his Proton Satria Neo started winning at the Malaysian Rally and the season ending China Rally. The only other rally winners were Indian Skoda driver Gaurav Gill at the Rallye de Nouvelle Calédonie and Malaysian Proton driver Karamjit Singh. Super 2000 cars dominated results with only New Zealand driver Brian Green finishing in the top three at any event in a Group N car.

Selected entries edit

The following teams and drivers represent the major entries participating in the 2012 season:

Constructor Car Entrant Driver Co-driver Rounds
Proton Proton Satria Neo S2000   Proton Motorsports   Alister McRae   Bill Hayes All
  Per-Gunnar Andersson   Emil Axelsson 1–4
  Juha Salo   Marko Salminen 5–6
Proton Satria Neo   Proton R3 Cusco Rally Team   Karamjit Singh   Vivek Ponnusamy 1, 3–6
  Akira Bamba   Takahiro Yasui 1, 3–6
  Kenneth Koh   Jagdev Singh 1, 3–6
  Sanjay Takle   Musa Sherif 1, 3–6
Škoda Škoda Fabia S2000   Team MRF   Chris Atkinson   Stéphane Prévot 1–4, 6
  Gaurav Gill   Glenn MacNeall All
Mitsubishi Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X   Green Motorsport   Brian Green   Fleur Pedersen 1
Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX 2–3
Subaru Subaru Impreza WRX STI   MRU Motorsports 4–6
  Cusco Racing   Shuhei Muta   Hajime Hoshino 5

Race calendar and results edit

The 2012 APRC is as follows:[1]

Round Rally name Podium finishers Statistics
Rank Driver Car Time Stages Length Starters Finishers
1   Rally of Whangarei
(30 March – 1 April)
1   Chris Atkinson Škoda Fabia S2000 2:50:16.1 16 283.28 km 22 17
2   Per-Gunnar Andersson Proton Satria Neo S2000 2:50:44.3
3   Gaurav Gill Škoda Fabia S2000 2:52:51.9
2   Rallye de Nouvelle Calédonie
(28–29 April)
1   Gaurav Gill Škoda Fabia S2000 2:52:35.9 19 266.49 km 11 4
2   Chris Atkinson Škoda Fabia S2000 2:57:28.1
3   Brian Green Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX 3:08:21.6
3   Rally Queensland
(26–27 May)
1   Chris Atkinson Škoda Fabia S2000 2:20:52.4 19 235.86 km 14 10
2   Alister McRae Proton Satria Neo S2000 2:24.50.3
3   Michael Boaden (ARC) Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX 2:25.33.5
4   Malaysian Rally
(14–15 July)
1   Alister McRae Proton Satria Neo S2000 2:57:31.5 15 235.28 km 14 9
2   Chris Atkinson Škoda Fabia S2000 3:22:56.6
3   Brian Green Subaru Impreza WRX STI 3:24:08.1
5   Rally Hokkaido
(15–16 September)
1   Karamjit Singh Proton Satria Neo 2:30:28.3 18 220.48 km 41 28
2   Akira Bamba Proton Satria Neo 2:33:58.1
3   Brian Green Subaru Impreza WRX STI 2:34:29.0
6   China Rally
(26–28 October)
1   Alister McRae Proton Satria Neo S2000 03:02:33.1 13 230.96 km 10 9
2   Chris Atkinson Škoda Fabia S2000 03:04:19.6
3   Juha Salo Proton Satria Neo S2000 03:09:31.7

Championship standings edit

The 2012 APRC for Drivers points is as follows:

Position Driver Vehicle  
NZL
 
NCL
 
AUS
 
MAL
 
JPN
 
CHN
Total
1   Chris Atkinson Škoda Fabia S2000 1 12 2 9 1 12 2 7 2 10 154
2   Alister McRae Proton Satria Neo S2000 4 4 Ret 7 2 7 1 8 Ret 5 1 10 121
3   Brian Green Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX 5 2 3 6 3 4 3 4 3 8 3 5 114
4   Gaurav Gill Škoda Fabia S2000 3 6 1 10 Ret 7 Ret 5 Ret 7 Ret 7 82
5   Karamjit Singh Proton Satria Neo 6 Ret 4 4 1 8 4 3 72
6   Akira Bamba Proton Satria Neo Ret 5 2 5 1 2 5 5 1 57
7   Per-Gunnar Andersson Proton Satria Neo S2000 2 12 Ret 2 4 4 Ret 7 55
8   Kenneth Koh Proton Satria Neo 7 Ret 7 4 2 6 34
9   Sanjay Takle Proton Satria Neo 8 6 6 Ret 1 7 27
Key
Colour Result
Gold Winner
Silver 2nd place
Bronze 3rd place
Green Points finish
Blue Non-points finish
Non-classified finish (NC)
Purple Did not finish (Ret)
Black Excluded (EX)
Disqualified (DSQ)
White Did not start (DNS)
Cancelled (C)
Blank Withdrew entry from
the event (WD)

Note: 112 refers to the bonus points awarded for each leg of the rally for the first five place getters, 1st (7), 2nd (5), 3rd (3), 4th (2), 5th (1). There are two bonus legs for each rally.

References edit

  1. ^ "2012 Events Calendar". FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship. Archived from the original on 2012-04-26. Retrieved 2012-04-09.

External links edit