Kajetan and Jarek started the final loop of Rallye du Valais highly motivated and ready for close fight for podium. LOTOS Rally Team crew confirmed their quick pace, setting third fastest time on stage 16. Unfortunately, at the stop line flames appeared under the bonnet of their Fiesta R5. The fire was caused by oil leak. Kajetan and Jarek extinguished the flames and continued towards the start of next stage but there was too much damage and Polish duo had to retire from the fight for second position on round 10 of FIA European Rally Championship.
Drama of Kajetanowicz and Baran, which happened just three stages before the finish, deprived them of certain podium position and fair amount of points in FIA ERC classification. However, car failure does not influence great performance by Kajetan and Jarek on extremely challenging and twisty route of Swiss rally. Kajetanowicz has shown that even in his first outing on these unique stages he is able to maintain quick and consistent pace, keeping up with more experienced FIA ERC frontrunners. Top-three results on nine tests and one stage win are proofs of impressive performance of Polish duo on Swiss roads, where both weather and grip can change very quickly. Great pace on Friday’s leg of Rallye du Valais means that LOTOS Rally Team crew, despite huge share of bad luck, does not leave Switzerland empty-handed. According to FIA ERC regulations they scored six bonus points for second place after first leg of the rally.
Kajetan Kajetanowicz: – On stage 16 everything went according to our plan but unfortunately only for the first 10 kilometres. Then we saw smoke coming from under the bonnet so we knew that something went wrong but we were not sure about the cause. At the finish line of SS16 the flames appeared. Thanks to quick and efficient action we managed to put out the fire. It turned out that it was caused by oil leak. We had to retire.
Well, sometimes it happens, sometimes luck just abandons us. It is a shame, because we were fighting for really good result here. Today after the first loop we were still second in overall standings of this extremely difficult rally. I am not counting the points at the moment although we could have scored a lot of them.
Our team prepared the car superbly but in competitive driving in extreme conditions, at such great pace, failures can just happen. Unfortunately we have no influence on material things although I would love to have such power. However, I am still pleased with experience which we gained here. We leave Switzerland with a lot of precious information because we drove all the stages, although today we did not complete all of them twice. Such situations are extremely disappointing but we want to brush off our overalls and look ahead. Soon we will take part in the last round of this season’s FIA European Rally Championship. Now we are looking forward to fantastic, fabled Tour de Corse and together with the whole team we will come back stronger and fight even harder.
Jarek Baran: – Valais is an extremely difficult event: very twisty and tricky stages, variable weather and complicated tyre choice. This is time for gaining experience and preparing good pace notes. In this year’s championship we are the only team which successfully engages in fight with factory drivers whose experience in every event is at the moment greater. Today we already know a lot more about everything and undoubtedly we will use this knowledge next year. We want to thank for support from Poland and for nice meetings with Polish people living in Switzerland.
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