Australian Chris Atkinson and Belgian co-driver Stephane Prevot have won the Brakes Direct International Rally of Queensland on the Sunshine Coast today.
The win is Atkinson’s second in the 2012 FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship and sees the Gold Coaster claim the prestigious Pacific Cup for the second year running.
“It’s been an awesome weekend and I can’t thank my MRF Skoda team enough for providing me with such a strong car given the tricky conditions this weekend,” Atkinson told Speedcafe.com.
“This is the second year running we’ve won the Pacific Cup which is great to have another trophy to add to the cabinet but more importantly we’ve now extended our lead in the championship to a very healthy margin.”
Second in the event was Scotsman Alister McRae in the Proton Satria S2000 with 67-year-old Kiwi driver Brian Green scoring his second consecutive podium finish in the series coming home third for the weekend.
Leading his MRF Skoda teammate Gaurav Gill by eight points coming into the round, Atkinson now leads the APRC by 38 points over Gill with three rounds remaining in Malaysia, Japan and China, respectively.
Luck 7 V8 Supercar star Tim Slade was a surprise equal-winner with Michael Guest in today’s heat of the Side by Side Challenge.
After a roll on day one, Slade got into the groove in his Polaris and went head to head with Guest in the Pirtek Racing Can Am after Cody Crocker slipped out of contention with two punctures.
“Well today was a better day, we won! Well equal-first,” said Slade.
“Would you believe after 52 minutes of stages, two of us had the same overall time!”
In the Bosch two-wheel-drive Australian Rally Championship Honda driver Eli Evans won today’s heat by more than eight minutes over the Nissan 200SX of Alan Roe.
Heat 1 winner Jack Monkhouse fell victim to a right rear suspension failure on his Nissan Sylvia S15 forcing him out of the event handing the win to Evans.
“It was a typical drama packed Rally Queensland!” said Evans.
“We had a bad start and were down by eight minutes after the second stage after a flat tyre, we tried to change it and the car fell off the jack twice so we lost a lot of valuable time.”
The Bosch four-wheel-drive Australian Rally Championship saw Michael Boaden completely dominate the field in the second leg of the rally to score his maiden win in a round of the Bosch ARC.
The New South Welshman finished nearly four minutes ahead of Tom Wilde to take the championship lead by two points heading to Round 4 in South Australia.
Round 4 of the FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship takes crews to Asia for the Malaysian Rally – July 14-15.
APRC overall results
| Pos. | Driver | Team | Diff |
| 1 | Chris Atkinson | MRF Skoda | |
| 2 | Alastair McRae | Proton Motorsports | +3m57.9s |
| 3 | Brian Green | Brian Green Motorsport | +15m19.6s |
| 4 | PG Andersson | Proton Motorsports | +16m08.6s |
| 5 | Atsushi Masumura | Atsushi Masumura | +18m11.0s |
ARC: Two-wheel-drive Results
| Pos. | Driver | Car | Diff |
| 1 | Eli Evans | Honda Jazz | |
| 2 | Alan Roe | Nissan 200SX | +8m10.5s |
| 3 | Adrian Coppin | Ford Fiesta | +13m32.2s |
ARC: Four-wheel-drive Results
| Pos. | Driver | Car | Diff |
| 1 | Michael Boaden | Mitsubishi Evo IX | |
| 2 | Tom Wilde | Mitsubishi Evo X | +3m57.2s |
| 3 | Tony Sullens | Subaru Impreza WRX | +7m07.3s |
Check out Chris Atkinson talking about his victory in Queensland
Check out the highlights from the day
