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Prokop returns to WRC in Mexico
Martin Prokop makes his FIA World Rally Championship season debut at next month’s Rally Guanajuato Mexico (3 - 6 March).
The 33-year-old Czech driver has been a WRC regular since 2005 but missed the start of this season to make his first appearance at the Dakar Rally, in which he finished 14th. He returns for the WRC’s third round, and the first on gravel, in his familiar Ford Fiesta RS.
Mexico’s Benito Guerra, who finished sixth in 2014, is also entered in a Fiesta RS. There are 13 World Rally Cars listed, including a second appearance of the season for Ukraine’s Valeriy Gorban in a Mini John Cooper Works.
All the championship frontrunners are entered as expected, with Hyundai naming Thierry Neuville and Dani Sordo in its lead team and Hayden Paddon in the second-string Hyundai Motorsport N squad.
Reigning WRC 2 champion Nasser Al-Attiyah (below) starts his title defence in a Fiesta R5. He faces stiff opposition from the likes of fellow Qatari Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari and Peru’s Nicolas Fuchs, both of whom have switched from a Fiesta to a Skoda Fabia R5, Finland’s Teemu Suninen and Mexico’s Ricardo Triviňo.
Frenchman Michel Fabre is the lone driver in WRC 3, which he leads after two rounds, in Citroën’s DS 3 R3T.
“We are delighted with the strength and quality of the entry for Rally Mexico,” enthused event director Patrick Suberville. “All the major WRC protagonists will take part and the size of the field enables us to run the complete event with three-minute intervals for safety and to alleviate potential problems with the dust.”
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