Hi, friends!
It's good that European Rally Championship has started finally. And there is nothing new - current ERC champion Russian Alexey Lukyanuk leads Rally Poland after firs day of competition.
Yesterday it was double Russian lead because we had Nikolay Gryazin with VW Polo R5 in the lead while Lukyanuk was in the 2nd place overall.
Norwegian Andreas Mikkelsen was 3rd overall but is using this rally to rebuild his confidence after some misfortunes in the World Rally Championship where he is still leading WRC2 championship (but don't forget that one of his results must be removed from his table. But that was yesterday.
Nikolay Gryazin had to retire today from the 2nd place because of the double puncture and FIA rules say that cars must have four wheels freely running to be able to compete in any event by FIA.
I must say that I am impressed with the pace of Lukyanuk who still drives Citroen C3 Rally2 car while 2nd placed driver is Andreas Mikkelsen who is Škoda works driver but their program is ran by their satellite team called Toksport which is private team from Germany (they used to be from Turkey in the past).
I must add that I am kinda disappointed with performance of Hyundai works driver Craig Breen who broke his suspension today on his Hyundai i20 R5. He should be more cosistant as a works driver.
Tomorrow is another long day and it should be interesting to see who will win the first round of European Rally Championship 2021.
You can follow results on the following link:
https://www.ewrc-results.com/results/68541-orlen-rajd-polski-rally-poland-2021/
Credit for photos and videos to ERC and Youtube
Follow @pfunk and @themarkymark for newest witness news.
Great attitude from crew at @minnowsupport :)
Grab a beer and enjoy!
Cheers!