Jan Habig Rallying

News

VW Rally an all-blue affair

21 Jul 2013

Once again, the sponsor of the Volkswagen Rally was denied the honour of standing on the top step of the podium, when the fourth round of the 2013 SA National Rally Championships saw a solid one-two victory for Ford.

The Basil Read Ford Fiesta duo, Jan Habig and Robert Paisley, delivered a calculated performance to finish second overall behind the similar Ford of Mark Cronjé and Robin Houghton, and more than three minutes ahead of third-placed Giniel de Villiers and Greg Godrich (Imperial Toyota Yaris). This takes Ford's wins to five on the trot, and the third event out of four this year in which the team achieved a 1-2 result. This superb performance by Habig and Paisley consolidates their second spot in the SA title chase, only 5 points behind Cronjé.

"The goal on the second day was to stay out of trouble and plan our strategy based on Mark's pace," said Habig, a former multiple national rally champion. "Unfortunately this morning as we arrived at the restart, we had been given a 20-second penalty and the gap between myself and Mark had increased from 26,3 seconds to 46,3 seconds. We decided just to stay in touch and keep a comfortable lead on Leeroy Poulter and Elvéne Coetzee in the Toyota Yaris."

"We are elated to have clinched another podium position albeit on the second step this time, and in the process bank some valuable championship points," continued Habig. "We had an incident-free event, and once again the reliability and handling of the Ford Fiesta was phenomenal - it never missed a beat."

The rally organisers came up with some new stages in Jeffrey's Bay, and the overall mix of stages was good, with the new stages being a lot tighter as opposed to the sweeping, flowing stages of the Longmore Forests.

For Habig's sponsors: Basil Read, Ford, Castrol, TonyKart and Babcock, this was another proud moment.

"It is great to have this kind of support and I was delighted with the news that Ford will be sponsoring the fifth round of the Championship next month in Gauteng," commented Habig.

Ford has dominated the 2013 series, winning all four events so far, and the Basil Read Ford has posed on the podium with two second places and an overall victory so far.

>> Get more news stories here