APRC Rally Longyou Preview

Würth and FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship (APRC) have a long-term partnership. For the rally teams and drivers in the APRC the Würth partnership has provided the best automotive and chemical products on the market, backed up with technical advice.

China Rally made a welcome return to the FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship and as always the Longyou based event (400km SW of Shanghai) proved to be a huge challenge with its unique mixture of super-fast concrete roads and twisty narrow mountain tracks.

Considering their latest winning streak, the Cusco team came to China determined to continue their unbeaten record of APRC wins with their two drivers Yuya Sumiyama in a Skoda and Mike Young with his Toyota Vitz.

After some difficulties at the port of Shanghai and technical difficulties the team managed to prepare within two days and eventually begin the rally. In the first race Sumiyama managed to cross the goal line second as only Estonian driver Karl Kruuda in a FAW Volkswagen Golf was faster than him.

While Kruuda continued to lead, Young moved up to second place only to retire when the Toyota engine overheated mid-race on the third race of San Men Yuan.

There was more drama for the Cusco team when his teammate Sumiyama crashed his car right at the beginning of the same race. Luckily he carried the right spare parts (and some Würth product) to repair his car on the track. Nevertheless this caused him to drop back to the 21st place.

From now on Lin Dewei and Fan Gaoxiang in their Subarus formed the lead of the rally with Kruuda at the second place. But they could not hold their position so that finally Kruuda and his co-driver Dale Moscatt won the rally and were handed the winner`s trophies and prize-money from Würth.

During the 2-day event the rally teams are allocated 60-minutes per day when the mechanics and engineers can work on the cars. During that time they used a huge amount of Würth product and the most popular items are Würth Brake Cleaner (rally-car brakes can reach 800C), ‘Rost Off Plus’, ‘Active Glass Cleaner’, Interior Cleaner (so much mud!), 100’s of Cable ties and Würth Paper Roll. For protection the mechanics wear Würth Softflex gloves and use Würth Hand-cleaner.

Würth is always the solid backing of APRC. Let’s look forward to Würth and the APRC returning to China Rally in 2019.