Why there’s no stopping Team MRF Tyres in ERC

Mārtiṇš Sesks and Efrén Llarena scored a combined 37 points for the squad on the Nyíregyháza-based event to bring Team MRF Tyres’ season total to 248 points.   

MRF Tyres Dealer Team placed second in the final table on 156 points, six ahead of BRC Racing Team, which guided Hayden Paddon and John Kennard to the FIA European Rally Championship for Drivers and Co-drivers respectively.

ACCR Entry Engineering took fourth as Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy held on for fifth by three points ahead of Topp-Cars Rally Team, despite the Irish outfit non-scoring for only the second time in 2023 in Hungary.  

Yacco ACCR Team’s late-season surge with Erik Cais at the helm was enough to draw level on points with seventh-placed RedGrey.

GR Motorsport could have finished higher than ninth had its star driver, Miklós Csomós, not crashed out of the Rally Hungary lead on the penultimate stage.  

Biltenik TRT Citroën Rally Team finished two points behind GR Motorsport thanks to Mads Østberg and Patrik Barth’s Rally Hungary victory aboard the outfit’s C3 Rally2.

Team MRF Tyres’ ERC representative Vivek Ponnusamy (above) had previously been presented with the trophy in recognition of its capture of back-to-back FIA European Rally Championship for Teams’ titles. However, he used the recent ERC Awards Evening in Budapest to pay tribute to his crews.  

“This [award] goes to all the drivers and co-drivers of the team,” said Ponnusamy. “It’s so enjoyable to be part of the ERC, it’s fantastic and to get back-to-back titles is worth it. The drivers, the co-drivers and the teams will be going for a hat-trick next year.”  

All points and positions remain subject to final FIA confirmation