Dramatic finish and JWRC victory for Aaron Burkart!

Final round of JWRC season has been held in Spain Catalunya. The organizer has chosen some new gravel-tarmac mixed stages, which gave new flavour to this traditional tarmac surfaced event. This round has been nominated by nine Junior entrants.

Both Junior World Rally Champion aspirants (the Suzuki Driver- Aaron Burkart, and the Citroen driver Hans Weijs) were fighting here for the title, and the local Spanish hero, Yeray Lemes been here also to show his performance in front of his Spanish fans.

Unfortunately the another Suzuki Sport Europe driver Karl Kruuda could not get the permit from Organiser to drive in Spain, since because of his young age he was not eligible to drive according to the local traffic law. This was a pain for Suzuki Sport Europe Team, because he didn't get chance to keep his 3rd position in the championship.

Before the event Aaron Burkart was staying on the lead of the Championship by 7 points ahead Hans Weijs. The target for Aaron was of course to score the necessary points to become the JWRC Champion.

On the opening day, as it was expected before, Weijs, Lemes and Burkart were fighting from beginning. The day ended by Lemes leading, Weijs behind, and Aaron on third place.

Suzuki Sport Europe performed a lot of efforts to develop its Swift S1600 through the whole season, still an unfortunate trouble happened to Aaron, what was forced him to retire on the second day, and dropped him down from 3rd place to 6th, while Lemes could kept on the lead, and Weijs on 2nd place.

For the final day the only chance remained for Aaron to catch the two car in front of him, and hope that the local driver Yeray Lemes can keep himself on the lead, and keep Hans Weijs behind.

On the penultimate day Aaron has made a perfect job. He didn't give up, and kept the pressure on the rivals. He had to and he stepped up to 4th place. As well known the rally is unpredictable and the fortune is changing so many times. The rough rally conditions this time impeded Yeray Lemes, and Hans Weijs also, but both of them were leading the rally for a while. Two stages before the end the fortune has turned again, and Hans Weijs has dropped down to third place, while Lemes got the lead again.

Finally the event been won by Yeray Lemes, followed by Bulgarian Todor Slavov, Hans Weijs and Aaron Burkart.

This 12 scored point was enough for Aaron to keep himself on the top of the leader board, and secured him his first JWRC Champion title! After Per-Gunnar Anderson's double victory, Aaron Burkart is the third driver who became Junior World Champion driving Suzuki Swift S1600 rally cars.

After the event Aaron Burkart commented: "I am so happy now. Despite the week started with a bad moment, when I had a crash during our test on Monday of the rally week, and that time I was almost not able to participate on the rally. However our team has made a perfect job and built me a new car in 3 days, which is amazing. The rally started well, I was in a fight with Yeray Lemes and Hans Weijs, but on Saturday a broken new stud bolt forced me to retire. At that time I had no chance to win, and I was very disappointed. However, on the rally field anything can happen. I didn't give up, and I knew I have to finish at least on 4th position to have any chance for winning. I feel sorry for Hans, that he also faced technical failure in the last moments. Finally I could do it, and I'd like to thank to all Suzuki Sport Europe Team that they helped me a lot to achieve the Title!"

Mr. Nobuhiro Tajima, Chairman of Suzuki Sport commented: "Until now, Suzuki Sport Europe was present in JWRC from the beginning, and been a determinant part of the JWRC championship. We are very happy and proud that we could do that, and we have won 3 times! We would like to thank to all of our fans that our team has received so many encouragements from them. We were secured JWRC title 2 times in earlier years with P-G Andersson, and now I am also very happy that we have Champion title again! In the name of Suzuki Sport Europe personally I'd like to thank for Aaron his efforts and congratulate him for his first JWRC title. From next year Suzuki Sport Europe will join to Monster Sport Europe in UK, and continue its motorsport activity. This choice is made because due to the decision taken by the F.I.A. to replace the Junior World Rally Championship in 2011 with the WRC Academy, where the S1600 cars are not eligible to take apart, Suzuki Sport Europe has already made a decision to close its workshop in Hungary by the end of 2010 and transfer their operations over to Monster Sport Europe in the UK. So I have to say that Aaron Burkart has made a remarkable result in the penultimate year of JWRC history."