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Andreas Mikkelsen takes dominant win in Sibiu Rally in Romania

Andreas Mikkelsen finally secured his second victory of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge season with an utterly dominant performance on the Sibiu Rally in Romania

Predictions that the event would be the IRC's equivalent of the Acropolis and jokes that 'Dakar set-ups' would be required proved close to the mark, with the rally proving extremely punishing.

Mikkelsen was not only fastest, but also had the smoothest run. A nerve-wracking fuel pump change in Friday evening's service and a puncture on Saturday morning were the only worries as he won by nearly six minutes for Skoda UK.

Every other frontrunner had myriad dramas, either with car damage, poor visibility in Friday afternoon's dust clouds, or both.

Sepp Wiegand looked to be on course for second until a suspension breakage on Saturday morning denied the young German what would have been his first podium at international level.

That meant Patrik Flodin came through to second despite a broken wheel dropping him to last on stage two. It was a maiden IRC podium for both the former Production World Rally Championship frontrunner and his Petter Solberg-run team.

WRC legend Francois Delecour completed the podium, despite suspension problems on his Munaretto Peugeot costing him a lot of time on both Saturday loops.

Leading finishers after SS12:

Pos  Driver                Team/Car             Time/Gap
 1.  Andreas Mikkelsen     Skoda UK           2h13m47.4s
 2.  Patrik Flodin         Solberg Ford       +  5m32.9s
 3.  Francois Delecour     Munaretto Peugeot  + 11m52.2s
 4.  Vitaliy Pushkar       Ukrane Mitsubishi  + 13m46.5s
 5.  Edwin Keleti          Mitsubishi         + 14m40.9s
 6.  Robert Consani        Renault            + 17m12.4s
 7.  Valentin Porcisteanu  Mitsubishi         + 18m00.6s
 8.  Harry Hunt            i-Cars Citroen     + 18m16.6s
 9.  Vlad Cosma            Citroen            + 20m42.3s
10.  Asja Zupanc           Mitsubishi         + 21m03.3s

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