Peugeot 207 S2000 driver Burcu Çetinkaya and co-driver Çìçek Güney finished 12th in the Rally of Turkey, sealing the best result of any of the local competitors, as well as picking up the Spirit of the Rally award.
Çetinkaya is preparing to start her IRC campaign in Sardinia in June, and her experience on the Turkish roads, plus her growing partnership with Güney, ensured a good result.
“It was good experience and I’m pleased with my result, even though I was not interested where I finished because I was using the rally just to practise,” said the 29-year-old. “I improved a lot on my use of the gearbox and the braking. It was only my third rally in a four-wheel-drive car, so I am quite pleased.”
Çetinkaya was also boosted by praise from a true legend of women in motorsport, Michèle Mouton.
'She is going about her career with the right spirit' – Mouton on Çetinkaya
Mouton (pictured below) was one of the first world rally drivers to join the four-wheel-drive era in the 1980s with the revolutionary Audi Quattro, and the Frenchwoman is using her status to increase the presence of women drivers in rallying as president of the FIA’s women in motorsport working group.
“I was not supposed to achieve anything, but I did OK, so I don’t see why she can’t either,” said Mouton after watching Çetinkaya’s achievement in Turkey. “She is going about her career with the right spirit and is progressing and that is important.
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“I told her that she had got a good result because the conditions were not easy. I also said she needed to be confident with her pacenotes and to keep working on them because that is very important.”
Çetinkaya, for her part, was delighted to be associated with four-time world rally winner Mouton, who only missed out on the overall 1982 WRC title because of mechanical failures for her Quattro S1 on a number of rallies.
“She’s the only hero I have in motorsport,” Çetinkaya commented. “I have watched many videos of her competing.”
Visit Burcu’s website for news on her forthcoming IRC campaign, and for pictures of Burcu and her rivals in rally action, click here.
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