The last APRC (Asia Pacific Rally Championship) race of the season took place in China (Rally of Longyou) over the weekend and was where the Proton R3 Motorsports team emerged doubly victorious with Alister McRae and Juho-Salo finishing first and third respectively in their Proton Satria Neo S2000 rally car.
With the conclusion of the rally in China, and the APRC season, it meant that the team now stands second overall with Skoda taking the top spot, Mitsubishi in third and Subaru in fourth for the constructor’s championship after navigating through bamboo forests and steep mountainous slopes of China’s Zhejiang Province at break-neck speeds against 99 other rallying contenders
Even though there were complicated stages that threw a combination of rough gravel, tarmac sections and warm temperatures situations at McRae, it was thankfully a weekend that was plague by very little problems.
No doubt that this year’s APRC season has been looked upon by the team as tough and challenging, but Proton feels that it has helped them prove that their Proton Satria Neo S2000 contender has been consistently reliable and a strong one at that, having gone through some of the most punishing international rallies.
On another note, Proton has also been able to dominate the APRC 2WD category with a clean sweep atop the podium, having a 1-2-3 finish with Karamjit Singh taking the top step for a second-year running, followed by Akira Bamba who took the 2012 Jr Champion for the second time and Kenneth Koh who is now the runner-up to the Bamba’s title on only his first year’s contention for the title.
Bamba and Koh’s Proton Satria Neo Group N rally cars were apparently seen by the rest of the pack as somewhat bullet-proof, having outclassed them entirely by completing the stages without any issues.
The PROTON R3 Cusco Rally Team had already taken the 2WD APRC Manufacturers Championship and APRC Junior Championship titles in the previous round in Hokkaido, Japan, a repeat of victories from the 2011 season.
