The sixth round of 2011 Intercontinental Rally Challenge, Rallye Acores, was held on July 14-16 in the archipelago of Rallye Acores which is a part of Portugal and is a popular resort situated on the Atlantic Ocean. One of the main topics of this event was the two Japanese drivers in Subaru's new R4 rally cars, WRC STI spec C R4s, as Fumio Nutahara joined with Toshihiro Arai. This was the Nutahara's first ever IRC event appearance while Arai had already competed in the third round of the championship, Tour de Corse.


This year's event was the 46th edition of this classic rally. The rally headquarters and Service Park was placed in Ponta Delgada, the largest town of Sao Miguel which is the largest of nine islands that makes up the archipelago. The all gravel stages were set around the mountainous area close to the town and had a wide variety of corners from slower ones to high speed bends. This nature of the stages gave the similar impression to the two Japanese drivers and both of them said during the recce that it was difficult to find out the right rhythm to drive, so the rally wouldn't be easy.


After the ceremonial start in the downtown of Ponta Delgada in the late afternoon on Wednesday opened the rally, serious competition got underway on the next day around the mountainous area in Lagoa, west of Ponta Delgada. Nutahara finished the first stage in fifteenth, as he needed to get familiar with his Subaru and controlled his pace. But, even after that, he wasn't able to increase the pace as much as he had hoped, so he ended Leg 1 in fourteenth, 1'18 behind the leader.


Arai also started the rally with controlled pace, just as Nutahara did, and was ranked in eleventh after SS1. He then set the seventh fastest time in Stage 2, placing himself between his rivals in S2000 cars, but had a problem with his car in the next test, as the car's engine lost its power only in left-hand corners due to a malfunction of fuel delivery system, and had to settled for the 25th place in SS3, some 15 seconds slower than the stage winner. Eventually, Arai was tenth and 56 seconds behind from the leader at the end of Leg 1.


For Leg 2 on Friday, the rally went to Sete Cidades in the western part of Sao Miguel. In the first stage of the leg, SS4 Batalha Golfe 1, Arai was suddenly hit by an electrical problem on his car and was forced to stop the car at only 200m from the stage start, resulting in a premature retirement for the day.


Meanwhile, Nutahara struggled during the first loop of the day. With heavy rain and fog complicating the conditions, his pace stagnated mainly because the car's set up wasn't perfected yet. The longest stage of the day in which he had planned to push harder was cancelled due to the dense fog and the work to retrieve a halted car, but he steadily kept going the remaining stages while many cars including those of leading crew retired during the day.


For the third loop, the better tire choice and some set up changes worked and he managed to set the ninth fastest time in SS10. However, on the next stage, SS11, one of the four drive shafts on his Subaru failed and he was forced to drive the 'three wheel drive' car with which he had to go on until the end of Stage 12, the last of the day. Despite the problem, he managed to bring the car back to the finish and ended Leg 2 in 11th overall, 6'30" behind the leader.


On Saturday, Leg 3 of the rally visited the hills around Pico de Vara situated in the eastern part of the island. Soon after the start of SS14, Nutahara's car had an engine malfunction and he was ranked lowly 24th in this stage. But the problem was resolved by just resetting the engine ECU and then he picked up his pace again in the next Super Special Stage. After that, he was able to drive in his true speed and ranked in ninth in the next two stages, SS16 and SS17. Ultimately, Nutahara finished the rally in tenth in the IRC division (11th overall) and collected an IRC championship point.


Although Arai retired from the rally in SS4, he competed in the final day by applying the SupeRally rule and was the seventh fastest in Stage 13. The ex-PWRC title winner continued to exploit the car's potential to score two sixth and a seventh in the final three stages of the rally. His stage times were really comparable to those of the leading S2000 competitors.

　[Result : 10th IRC Division]
"I had a testing with this car in Austria, the country that Stohl Racing is based, in the end of June. But this event was the first rally for me with a Subaru WRC STI and I think the largest factor that determined my performance here was the fact that I didn't know much about the car. It wasn't a matter of tire choice or suspension set up.
"In fact, I couldn't get rid of the habit of the way to drive Lancer and made quite a few mistakes in gear shift too. But, in the last stage of Leg 3, I finally became confident with the car, which should help me in the next event.
"As this Impreza weights lighter than Lancer, I will have to adjust my driving style to exploit the car's strong point. After that, I will be able to work on suspension set up."

　[Result : Retire]
"I drove in a controlled pace during the first leg but had a problem in SS3. At that time, I thought it was a fuel system malfunction but its root cause seemed to be a problem in electric system. It occurred again in the first stage of Leg 2 and the engine stopped working at all. It was really frustrating because I thought I could go faster in Leg 2 and had planned to push on that day.
"For Leg 3, I wanted to attack for the rest of rally but the lack of mechanical grip in general didn't allow me to do so.
"In this rally, I didn't have all R4 parts which we could use on my car but we will put on the complete kit for the next time. Until then, I would also like to improve the tires through discussion with our engineers."

"For Nutahara, this was the first rally with Subaru WRX STI for him and he had a lot to learn about the car. It must be the biggest factor for him this time.
"In Leg 2, choosing the right tires was quite difficult and our choice didn't work in the second loop because the conditions changed a lot. But, for the third loop, the tires seemed to perform well. On the wet surfaces in Leg 3, the grip level of tires was a bit less than the level we had expected. However, I hope it will be better when we will have improved the car, especially the suspension set up, as he had no experience with this car in the past.
"As for Arai, it was very frustrating that he had many problems with his car, including those in the Super Special in Leg 1 and the first stage of Leg 2. But the time gap between his car and other S2000 or Group N cars was well within our anticipation.
"We got a lot of valuable experience by running through a wide variety of surfaces in this event. This will help us in developing the tires which have ability to deal with broader range of surface conditions."