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Juho Hanninen clinches Rally Azores victory

Juho Hanninen moved back into the Intercontinental Rally Challenge points lead by winning Rally Azores

The reigning champion was kept on his toes by fellow Skoda driver Andreas Mikkelsen, as the Norwegian produced his strongest performance of the season to nose ahead of Hanninen on a couple of occasions.

The battle went on until SS14, when a blistering stage win for Hanninen in tricky conditions took him out of reach, after which Mikkelsen backed right off to settle for second.

Jan Kopecky completed an all-Skoda podium in third.

Bryan Bouffier was top Peugeot in fourth, having lost time running first on the road and due to his lack of experience on the stages. Guy Wilks crashed the Peugeot UK entry on Friday morning, while Bruno Magalhaes (Peugeot Portugal) was fending off Kopecky for third until a transmission problem stopped him earlier this afternoon.

Leading finishers after SS17:

Pos  Driver             Team/Car                Time/Gap
 1.  Juho Hanninen      Skoda                 2h19m03.8s
 2.  Andreas Mikkelsen  Skoda UK                 + 42.3s
 3.  Jan Kopecky        Skoda                  + 1m46.0s
 4.  Bryan Bouffier     ROMO Peugeot           + 3m36.2s
 5.  Patrik Sandell     Skoda Sweden           + 4m33.3s
 6.  Ricardo Moura      Mitsubishi (private)   + 6m07.0s
 7.  Vitor Lopes        Subaru (private)       + 9m52.1s
 8.  Vitor Pascoal      Mitsubishi (private)  + 12m47.3s
 9.  Sergio Silva       Subaru (private)      + 14m00.3s
10.  Paulo Maciel       Citroen (private)     + 18m10.7s

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