Brendan targets another podium finish at Rally Finland

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Brendan and Rhianon head to Europe this week for the next round of the World Rally Championship (WRC) Academy, Rally Finland. After a break from competition of two months, the brother-sister team have a busy few weeks ahead of them.

 

First up is their pre-Rally Finland preparation which will include attending a test session with WRC driver Ken Block this Saturday. Depending on Ken's schedule, Brendan is hoping to have a ride alongside Ken during his test. The following day, Brendan and Rhianon will have their own test in a Ford Fiesta R2 similar to their competition vehicle. Sitting alongside Brendan for the 100 kilometre test will be the head driving instructor from Tommi Makinen's rally driving school in Finland. Brendan worked with Tapio last year when he attended Makinen's school for snow driving practice and is looking forward to learning more from him. Tapio is a local and his knowledge of the road conditions will be a great help in Brendan's preparation for Rally Finland.


Two days of recconaissance will follow where the pair will write their pace notes for the event. A few stages in this year's rally are repeats from last year so the notes from those stages will just require some fine-tuning. The remainder of the stages will need new notes written.


A test in their competition car will follow on Wednesday before the rally kicks off on Thursday. This year's Rally Finland will cover 300 competitive kilometres with WRC Academy crews competing the entire event expect for the Power Stage, the final stage of the rally.


After a full-on week, Brendan and Rhianon will have a couple of days R & R in Germany. They plan to drive the Nurburgring and visit the Porsche Musuem before heading to the UK where they will start their preparation for Rally Germany.


The Saturday before Rally Germany (August 18), Academy crews will attend a driver training day in Belgium. They then have the option of watching a DTM race meeting at Nurburgring before heading to Trier ahead of the fourth WRC Academy round. The days prior to the rally will again consist of recconaissance and testing.


With two podium places from the opening two rounds of the 2012 WRC Academy, Brendan and Rhianon are keen to add to their points tally and move up the overall leaderboard. Going into round 3 they sit in third outright and having contested both Rally Finland and Rally Germany in their inaugural season last year, they are confident of a good result at both events.