Last year, Cajetan Kaetanovich became the champion of Europe in rally with two wins — the first and last stages of the season. Polak took the title of stability — in the other races he has finished second four times, once a third and another in one race came down, tearing off a wheel.
2016 Cajetan began with two second, two third and one eighth place. However, due to the fact that the triumphs of its competitors in other races or did not participate (as Ralph Sirmatsis, Craig Breen and Freddy Loix) or lost points for one reason or another (as Alex Lukyanyuk) Kaetanovich not just headed personal credit, but also He managed to create a significant gap.
Things went so far that on the eve of the Rally of Rzeszow — home to Kaetanovicha stage of the European Championship — experts talked about the fact that despite the remaining mathematical probability, a real chance for the title were only the Polish rally driver.
Yes, and in Poland in the seventh stage came only one of the three main contenders for the title — and that is the one for whom the title already, you might say, «in the pocket»: Cajetan Kaetanovich.
Aleksei Lukyanyuk, and Ralph Sirmatsis faced with shortage of funds. The Russian took the difficult decision and virtually resigned to the fact that this year he has «no chance» the coveted title, did not collect the money for the Polish stage. Petersburger plans to act on the Czech and Latvian stages of the ERC — Barum Czech Rally Zlín is a home for his team H-Racing stage and there he will be able to save on costs, and moved from winter to autumn Rally Liepāja Lukas can perform at their personal Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X, which also will not blow the budget.
Lett also tried to crowdfunding to raise money, but he managed to scrape together a few thousand euros — is rumored to be in the region of one and a half — which is so expensive to rent a car, as the Skoda Fabia R5 was unreal...
In the absence of Lukyanyuk and Sirmatsisa Kaetanovicha task of capturing the win and still far ahead of them in the individual competition was simplified. The list of participants was 85 Rzeszow Rally participants on cars from the Ford Fiesta R5 to ancient FSO Polonez 2000. But to make at least some competition to the main favorites of the race I could, perhaps, only one participant — Bryan Bouffier.
Despite the fact that Brian is originally from France, the Polish special stages it feels like at home. He has four titles of champion of Poland and the same number of victories in the Rally of Rzeszow — for example, Kaetanovich won this race only once.
However, Kajetan never in all the time did not give rally 2016 Briand chances to impose at least some fight — Kaetanovich all time was faster and the belief that he will be the winner of the race, not for a moment left his fans.
Of the seven special stages of the first day Cajetan Kaetanovich won five and concluded Friday a leader — someone else — with a margin of Brian Bouffier in 33.1 seconds. Actually the French and became the best on those two special stages that have not submitted a Pole — everything is as it should be.
Backlog ended the first day of the third Grzegorz Grzyb from grabbing the second position Bouffier on the basis of only a seven special stages was almost 1 minute 20 seconds. The rest of the lost and even more...
On the second day in the lead Kaetanovich one wicket won three special stages of the first section and brought its lead from Bouffier to 54 seconds. It was done and it was possible to lose a little pace, which he did.
But even «slowed down» a Pole pointed to the three remaining special stages one second and two third time and finished the race with a margin of a Frenchman in 46 seconds.
In turn, Brian Bouffier, who won all three afternoon special stages of Saturday, nearly three minutes ahead of Grzegorz Grzyb.
Then Lukas finished hub, Jakub Bzhezinski, Tomas Kasperchik Wojciech Huhala, Jaroslaw Koltun, Raul Yates and Antonin Tlustyak.
Due to the fact that the Polish stage of the European Rally Championship missed Alex Lukyanyuk traditional «squad» of Russians this time the crew was reduced to one — in the standings at the start of ERC 3 went duo Nicholas Gryazina and Yaroslav Fedorov, piloted by the front-wheel Peugeot 208 R2.
As part of the Rally of Rzeszow was not carried out step Youth Championship ERC Junior, but the Russians already had enough bitter struggle from which they emerged victorious! At the finish Gryazin Jr. was the first by a margin of 3 minutes 45 seconds from the nearest opponent, which has become the Hungarian Laszlo Nemeth.
The next stage of the European Rally Championship will be held in the Czech Republic — the participants are waiting for the legendary Barum Czech Rally Zlín. This race is traditionally gathers strong line-up, so wrestling on uneven pavement Czech is an incredibly sharp! The race will take place on 26 August.
