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Andreas Mikkelsen takes early Azores lead as 2012 Intercontinental Rally Challenge kicks off

Reigning Intercontinental Rally Challenge champion Andreas Mikkelsen took a narrow early lead over 2010 title-winner Juho Hanninen as the 2012 series got underway in the Azores this afternoon

Last year Mikkelsen produced a breakthrough challenge for victory on this event - then held in the summer - before Skoda requested that he hold position behind works driver and rally leader Hanninen.

This time Skoda UK man Mikkelsen got off to the best start by building a 3.2-second lead over Hanninen on the opening stage. The Finn reclaimed two seconds of that advantage on SS2, before Mikkelsen went slightly faster on the day-closing superspecial to head for service with a 1.4s lead.

Peugeot men Bryan Bouffier and 2010 Azores winner Bruno Magalhaes hold third and fourth, the latter slightly delayed when a handbrake problem forced him to reverse back on course on stage two.

Leading positions after SS3:

Pos  Driver              Team/Car              Time/Gap
 1.  Andreas Mikkelsen   Skoda UK              13m53.7s
 2.  Juho Hanninen       Skoda                   + 1.4s
 3.  Bryan Bouffier      Peugeot                + 23.0s
 4.  Bruno Magalhaes     Peugeot                + 29.9s
 5.  Sepp Wiegand        Skoda Deutschland      + 52.0s
 6.  Ricardo Moura       Mitsubishi             + 53.7s
 7.  Hermann Gassner Jr  Red Bull Skoda         + 56.1s
 8.  Oleksandr Salyuk    Iurii Chemezov Ford  + 1m17.5s
 9.  Rashid Al Ketbi     Skydive Dubai Skoda  + 1m37.2s
10.  Oleksii Tamrazov    Iurii Chemezov Ford  + 1m42.9s

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