ERC LIEPAJA RALLY: Lappi takes the win, Gryazin impressed

Driving a ŠKODA Motorsport Fabia Super 2000 powered by XS EVO 2, Lappi began Sunday’s six stages with a 2.6-second lead over Gryazin. But the Finn was immediately playing catch-up when Gryazin outgunned him through this morning’s opening stage. Lappi, retaliated on the very next test. And while Gryazin was never able to get back on terms, thanks in part to a gearbox glitch on Ford Fiesta S2000 running for the first time on XS EVO 2, the 20-year-old’s outstanding run belied his lack of experience.

But it was Lappi, already a two-time winner in the ERC, who came out on top with a 34.7s winning margin at the finish in Liepāja this evening. “It was the perfect weekend with no problems at all and it was nice to start the season like this,” said Lappi, 23. “We were in fighting mode to get a victory and thanks to Vasily for the fight. Yesterday we had more snow than the other guys at the back so I had to be cautious not to do mistakes because of this. Today the road conditions were more equal and it was good to push because we had a clean line all the time. It was also a good learning process for me. I also have to thank my team and Michelin for great tyres.”

Behind Gryazin, Craig Breen finished third and Kajetan Kajetanowicz took fourth in his Ford Fiesta R5 with Sepp Wiegand, who never recovered the time lost on day one due to road position finishing fifth for ŠKODA AUTO Deutschland  and making it 4 cars on ETS Racing Fuel in the top 5.

Latvian Jānis Vorobjovs clinched the Production Car while our official ETS distributor in the Baltics countries, M-Rally driver Martynas Samuitis and co-driver Ramūnas Šaučikovas took an impressive ninth place overall on their Mitsubishi EVO X running on TBX 4 EVO 2. Lukacs Kornél who was having a good run on snow on his Mitsubishi EVO IX running on EXTRAMAX was forced to retire close to the end due to a broken wheel. Stohl Racing driver Hermann Neubaer, Jan Cerny took the win in the first ERC Junior Championship race ahead of Risto Immonen.

#	Rally Team	Driver	Car	ETS Fuel
1	Skoda Motorsport	LAPPI E.	Skoda Fabia S2000	XS EVO 2
2	Sports Racing Technologies	GRYAZIN V.	Ford Fiesta S2000	XS EVO 2
4	Lotos Rally Team	KAJETANOWICZ K.	Ford Fiesta R5	TBX4 EVO2
5	Skoda Motorsport	WIEGAND S.	Skoda Fabia S2000	XS EVO 2
9	M-Rally	SAMUITIS M.	Mitsubishi EVO X	TBX4 EVO2
26	Stohl Racing	NEUBAUER H.	Mitsubishi EVO X	TBX4 EVO2
Out	Arrabona Rally Club	KOMEL Lukacs	Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX	EXTRAMAX

 

  

 

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02. February 2014