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.

Alexey Lukyanuk is not giving any chance to his rivals. While yesterday he won the Qualifying Stage, today he has achieved the best time in the three disputed special stages. 'San Mateo-DISA', 'Artenara-Festina' and 'Lomo del Palo' have been the three scenarios in which the Russian driver has consolidated a provisional advantage of just 3.4 seconds over Kajetan Kajetanowicz. 

This could have been more extensive, but the current winner in the ‘Islas Canarias' suffered a penalty of ten seconds due to jump start of the second timed stage. This detail allows 'Kajto' to put pressure on Lukyanuk at close range, foreseeing a passionate second section.

The third place is also for Jose AntonioSuárez, who is the leader among the Junior Under 28. “Cohete Suárez” and his Peugeot 208 T16 lead a tight battle with his teammate Pepe López, who is advantaged in 4.7 seconds. Both have unseat Ivan Ares of the provisional third place he used to occupy with his Hyundai i20 R5, moving  now the Galician down to the fifth place.

Bruno Magalhaes, leader of the FIA European Rally Championship, is sixth with 15.2 seconds off the top, just 3.8 ahead of the local driver Luis Monzón. Cristian García, champion and current leader in the national championship of the rallies, is eighth, completing the provisional top ten the French champion Sylvain Michel and Grzegorz Grzyb.

Tibor Érdi is the solid leader in ERC2 at the steering wheel of a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X; In ERC3 Chris Ingram digs in, which also allows him to lead the Junior Under 27 with the Opel Adam R2. In the Ladies Trophy the Canarian Emma Falcon has also given no choice to her rivals and sets the tone at the command of the Citroën DS3 R3T.

Source: rallyislascanarias.com