Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiyah on board a Ford Fiesta R5 leads the Cyprus Rally amidst drama that saw the retirement of the European Rally Championship’s main contenders, Portugal’s Bruno Magalhaes and reigning ERC champion, Poland’s Kajetan Kajeranowicz. They both retired in special stage six after an exit in exactly the same spot, along with Castrol Ford Team Turkiye’s Murat Bonstanci.

The first section of the 41 Rally Islas Canarias finds in the Russian driver and his Ford Fiesta R5 its first leaders. The current winner of the Grancanarian competition has even passed a ten seconds penalty. The first Spaniard to qualify is José Antonio Suárez, third with a Peugeot 208 T16.

The Czech driver Jan Kopecky (Skoda Fabia R5) won the 46th Barum Czech Rally Zlín, which is the eight event of the FIA European Rally Championship (ERC) and the fifth event of Auto-club Czech Rally Championship 2016. The Skoda Motorsport factory driver had nerves of iron in the end unlike Russian Alexey Lukyanuk (Ford Fiesta R5) and won for the fifth time Barum Rally and takes home the Challenge cup. Lukyanuk on the last stage was trying to overtake Kopecky but he crashed and dropped out of the top ten. The second place took Czech Tomas Kostka and third was Jan Cerny (both Skoda Fabia R5).