The sixth and final event of the FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship “Xiaofu Cup” China Rally Longyou 2012 starts today with official flagoff and Stage 1.

Though Team MRF’s Australian driver Christopher Atkinson has all but wrapped up the annual overall title, the China Rally Longyou race billed as the most challenging still has a lot to offer to the audience. APRC will attract 10 cars representing six teams in Longyou while a total of 99 cars representing 41 teams will take part in the China Rally Championship.

Team MRF’s Atkinson missed Japan ue to his participation in the World Rally Championship, but his two wins and two runners-up in the previous four events means he only needs to finish the race to win his first APRC overall championship title.

New Zealand veteran Brian Green put up a steady performance in the previous five events and theoretically still has the chance to win the overall title, but only if something unexpected happens, as he acknowledged in an earlier interview.

Only the Malaysian team used S2000 cars in the last two seasons, but this year MRF have Skoda Fabia's with the same technicalities and Team MRF is set to be crowned with the team title.


But the race for the manufacturers’ title is not over yet as Proton Motorsports, only 25 points behind, still has the chance to overtake MRF. For this Proton invited CRC regular Juha Salo of Finland, hoping his China experience will help the team win valuable points.

Britain’s Alister McRae had only won the Malaysian stop of the APRC this year and is out of race for the overall title, but he had won the last two Longyou races for Proton Motorsports, and a hat-trick would be the icing on the cake for him to complete the season.

This year’s Longyou race will feature a route totaling 645.64 kilometers with 230.95 kilometers for 13 special stages, identical with last year’s route.

This year, Longyou will be hosting the China Rally Championship for the 10th time since 2003 and the FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship for the 7th time since 2006. Reporters from more than 40 of China’s mainstream media organizations have been invited to cover the race.

The total number of news organizations would amount to 80 and the number of the reporters to around 200, adding those invited by the participating teams and the local media. They will provide a comprehensive news coverage and promotion of the competition in various forms.

(Story by FASC correspondent Fei Chao)