The young Henk Lategan and co-driver, Barry White, will not have much time to relax after the Secunda Rally finishes this afternoon. Lategan and White will have to rush to the OR Tambo Airport to make their flght to Europe where he will be competing th the Rally Portugal, a round of the World Rally Championship.
It will be his second outing on a round of the WRC after competing the the iconic Monte Carlo Rally at the beginning of the year. He will hope to do better than on his first WRC rally when the conditions caught him out.
The rally Portugal has been named “Best rally in the world” five times and has been held since 1967 and became a round of the WRC in 1973. From 2002 to 2007 it was not part of the calender.
By entering the Rally Portugal Lategan will be following in the footsteps of Sarel van der Merwe who was entered in the1984 event as part of thje Audi Quattro Works team. On the first stage on the rally he hit a bank and that was the end of his participation.
Lategan will be using the Skoda Fabia S2000 that he has been using since last year on European events including the Acropolis Rally. The Skoda Fabia S2000 is, however, being phased out and replaced by the more potent Skoda R5 that has already won two rallies since it was launced a month ago.
Lategan and White will have their work cut out as they will also be competing against other R5 entries, the most popular one the M-Sport Ford Fiesta, while Citroen and Peugeot have also developed R5 models to replace the current S2000 cars.
We wish them luck!