After three days of intense competition, the 2010 FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship Huafei Sefang Cup China (Longyou) Rally ended on Sunday, November 7. Alister McRae of Britain from the Malaysia Proton Racing team finished first in the APRC-registered drivers. Japan’s CUSCO Racing Team’s Yuya Sumiyama won the Asia Cup while the overall winner was CRC’s British entrant Mark Hingis.

Sunday’s competition featured six stages passing Sanmenyuan, Hengshan and Mohuan, totaling 83.70 kilometers. The difficulty of driving was lowered than that of the previous day, when a couple of drivers pulled out either after crashing or suffered mechanical problems.

MRF Racing Team’s Japanese driver Katsuhiko Taguchi pulled out race after his car hit a tree, but teammate and closest rival Gaurav Gill from India also had to drop out of the race with mechanical problem, handing the APRC annual championship title to Taguchi who was leading Gill by three points, 100 to 97. Taguchi and Gill did not race the final six stages on Sunday. Competition then came down to CUSCO’s two Japanese drivers, two Proton racers and the Chinese wildcards. Saturday’s best performer Hiroshi Yanagisawa suffered mechanical problems at the special stage 10 and withdrew from the competition. His teammate Yuya Sumiyama successfully beat off strong challenge from two Proton drivers to finish fourth best of the day. The achievement helped him to win the Asia Cup drivers’ title. His pilot Naoki Kase won the Asia Cup top pilot award.

Proton Racing Team’s Alister McRae and Christopher Atkinson both kept their momentum, finishing 5th and 6th overall on Sunday. They are first and second in the APRC-registered drivers.

“China's round is always difficult and tough. This weekend is, like Chris said, really tough for us. We had one puncture and we finish the game finally. Everything is quite good. And it's a good way to end the rally for Proton,” McRae said after the competition.

“It is a really difficult weekend and we are happy to finish it with such a good result. Yesterday we had a puncture and that cost some time. But we still got the first and the second place, and we are quite happy for the result,” said Atkinson.

Making his debut as a wildcard in APRC competition, China’s Wei Hongjie of the Guizhou Bailing Racing was third in the APRC drivers, three minutes and 7 second behind second-placed Atkinson.

“We've learnt the gap between the Chinese drivers and the foreigners. Besides, we've learnt a lot about the advanced skills and equipment. That's all beneficial for Chinese teams to improve,” said Wei after the race.

Wei’s teammate Liu Caodong and Li Wei of Subaru Racing Team followed closely behind. Another wildcard Xu Jun of Hongyun Honghe failed to complete the race due to mechanical problems.