2012 Asia-Pacific Rally Championship

The 2012 Asia-Pacific Rally Championship season is an international rally championship sanctioned by the FIA. The championship is contested by a combination of regulations with Group N competing directly against Super 2000 cars for points. Australian driver Chris Atkinson won the championship he narrowly lost the previous year, beating the Proton R3 Rally Team he raced for in 2011. His Škoda Fabia won the Rally of Whangarei as well as his home event the International Rally of Queensland as well as finishing second in New Caledonia, Malaysia and China, building up a lead his 2011 teammate and defending champion Alister McRae could not catch once his Proton Satria Neo started winning at the Malaysian Rally and the season ending China Rally. The only other rally winners were Indian Skoda driver Gaurav Gill at the Rallye de Nouvelle Calédonie and Malaysian Proton driver Karamjit Singh. Super 2000 cars dominated results with only New Zealand driver Brian Green finishing in the top three at any event in a Group N car.

Selected entries

The following teams and drivers represent the major entries participating in the 2012 season:

Constructor	Car	Entrant	Driver	Co-driver	Rounds
Proton	Proton Satria Neo S2000	Proton Motorsports	Alister McRae	Bill Hayes	All
			Per-Gunnar Andersson	Emil Axelsson	1–4
			Juha Salo	Marko Salminen	5–6
	Proton Satria Neo	Proton R3 Cusco Rally Team	Karamjit Singh	Vivek Ponnusamy	1, 3–6
			Akira Bamba	Takahiro Yasui	1, 3–6
			Kenneth Koh	Jagdev Singh	1, 3–6
			Sanjay Takle	Musa Sherif	1, 3–6
Škoda	Škoda Fabia S2000	Team MRF	Chris Atkinson	Stéphane Prévot	1–4, 6
			Gaurav Gill	Glenn MacNeall	All
Mitsubishi	Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X	Green Motorsport	Brian Green	Fleur Pedersen	1
	Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX				2–3
Subaru	Subaru Impreza WRX STI	MRU Motorsports			4–6
		Cusco Racing	Shuhei Muta	Hajime Hoshino	5

Race calendar and results

The 2012 APRC is as follows:[1]

Round	Rally name	Podium finishers				Statistics
		Rank	Driver	Car	Time	Stages	Length	Starters	Finishers
1	Rally of Whangarei (30 March – 1 April)	1	Chris Atkinson	Škoda Fabia S2000	2:50:16.1	16	283.28 km	22	17
		2	Per-Gunnar Andersson	Proton Satria Neo S2000	2:50:44.3
		3	Gaurav Gill	Škoda Fabia S2000	2:52:51.9
2	Rallye de Nouvelle Calédonie (28–29 April)	1	Gaurav Gill	Škoda Fabia S2000	2:52:35.9	19	266.49 km	11	4
		2	Chris Atkinson	Škoda Fabia S2000	2:57:28.1
		3	Brian Green	Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX	3:08:21.6
3	Rally Queensland (26–27 May)	1	Chris Atkinson	Škoda Fabia S2000	2:20:52.4	19	235.86 km	14	10
		2	Alister McRae	Proton Satria Neo S2000	2:24.50.3
		3	Michael Boaden (ARC)	Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX	2:25.33.5
4	Malaysian Rally (14–15 July)	1	Alister McRae	Proton Satria Neo S2000	2:57:31.5	15	235.28 km	14	9
		2	Chris Atkinson	Škoda Fabia S2000	3:22:56.6
		3	Brian Green	Subaru Impreza WRX STI	3:24:08.1
5	Rally Hokkaido (15–16 September)	1	Karamjit Singh	Proton Satria Neo	2:30:28.3	18	220.48 km	41	28
		2	Akira Bamba	Proton Satria Neo	2:33:58.1
		3	Brian Green	Subaru Impreza WRX STI	2:34:29.0
6	China Rally (26–28 October)	1	Alister McRae	Proton Satria Neo S2000	03:02:33.1	13	230.96 km	10	9
		2	Chris Atkinson	Škoda Fabia S2000	03:04:19.6
		3	Juha Salo	Proton Satria Neo S2000	03:09:31.7

Championship standings

The 2012 APRC for Drivers points is as follows:

Position Driver Vehicle NZL NCL AUS MAL JPN CHN Total 1 Chris Atkinson Škoda Fabia S2000 1 ^12 2 ^9 1 ^12 2 ^7 2 ^10 154 2 Alister McRae Proton Satria Neo S2000 4 ^4 Ret ^7 2 ^7 1 ^8 Ret ^5 1 ^10 121 3 Brian Green Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX 5 ^2 3 ^6 3 ^4 3 ^4 3 ^8 3 ^5 114 4 Gaurav Gill Škoda Fabia S2000 3 ^6 1 ^10 Ret ^7 Ret ^5 Ret ^7 Ret ^7 82 5 Karamjit Singh Proton Satria Neo 6 Ret 4 ^4 1 ^8 4 ^3 72 6 Akira Bamba Proton Satria Neo Ret 5 ^2 5 ^1 2 ^5 5 ^1 57 7 Per-Gunnar Andersson Proton Satria Neo S2000 2 ^12 Ret ^2 4 ^4 Ret ^7 55 8 Kenneth Koh Proton Satria Neo 7 Ret 7 4 ^2 6 34 9 Sanjay Takle Proton Satria Neo 8 6 6 Ret ^1 7 27

Key Colour Result Gold Winner Silver 2nd place Bronze 3rd place Green Points finish Blue Non-points finish Non-classified finish (NC) Purple Did not finish (Ret) Black Excluded (EX) Disqualified (DSQ) White Did not start (DNS) Cancelled (C) Blank Withdrew entry from the event (WD)

Note: ^1 – ^12 refers to the bonus points awarded for each leg of the rally for the first five place getters, 1st (7), 2nd (5), 3rd (3), 4th (2), 5th (1). There are two bonus legs for each rally.

References

1. "2012 Events Calendar". FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship. Archived from the original on 2012-04-26. Retrieved 2012-04-09.

External links

• Official website
• APRC Live Podcast
• APRC News and Video