Czech rolls in first stage.

Citroen's Martin Prokop managed to salvage two points from the Corona Rally Mexico last weekend, the opening round in the FIA Junior World Rally Championship.

Prokop, who is competing in both the JWRC and the Production Car WRC this season, finished third in the Junior series last season and many thought he would lead the way in Leon.

The Czech got it wrong though on the opening day when he rolled his C2 S1600 in the very first stage. That incident cost him more than 7 minutes and while he made it back to service and completed SS2 and SS3, an engine sensor problem put him out in SS4.

On day two he rejoined under the SupeRally and while he set some good times, including a number in the top three, by then it was all academic and he eventually had to settle for seventh place.

"We just got caught out on the first stage and so we rolled three times," he explained. "The car was on its roof and it took us a while to get it back on its wheels as there were no spectators around to help.

"There was quite a lot of damage to the bodywork, the left-rear window was broken and the interior of the car was covered in dust. Luckily we were able to get through the next two stages and reach the service park.

"Unfortunately, we had to retire [from day 1] in SS4 at the start of the second loop with a broken engine sensor.

"I started off with a better rhythm on day 2. We didn't make any mistakes and we set some very good times in the morning despite the difficulty of the stages.

"On the first stage of the afternoon we lost a lot of time with the same problem we had on Friday - an engine sensor - but this time we were able to change it on the road section just before SS13.

"Overall though it has not been a good rally for us because we were stopped for a long time."

Citroen's JWRC customer division boss Jean-François Liénéré was disappointed with Prokop's form. Indeed he felt that all of the C2 Junior Experience drivers underperformed and fell short of expectations, with Aaron Burkart fourth, followed by Shaun Gallagher in sixth, Prokop - as already mentioned - in seventh and Francesco Fanari in eighth.

"We had hoped for some good things from Martin before the start of the season," he summed-up. "Without that off-road excursion he would have been right at the top of the classification, as his times on days two and three showed."