The longest leg of Tour de Corse, round four of the 2019 World Rally Championship, is underway. Saturday consists of almost 175 competitive kilometres, including the longest stage of the rally – extremely exciting Castagniccia test (over 47 kms), eagerly awaited by the fans. Kajetan Kajetanowicz and Maciej Szczepaniak maintain their pace and moved up the standings. The Polish duo hold fourth position in WRC-2 classification!
Cap Corse, Desert des Agriates and extremely demanding Castagniccia – these three excellent battlefields make up the Saturday’s leg of Tour de Corse. All stages are run twice, which adds up to almost 175 kilometres of fierce fight.
The LOTOS Rally Team crew, Kajetan Kajetanowicz and Maciej Szczepaniak, take part in this battle aboard their new rally car, Volkswagen Polo GTI R5. They perform well on asphalt stages. They are still learning many things – not only regarding their car, but also the rally route – but nevertheless they hold fourth position in WRC-2 category, just 5.9 seconds behind top three!
– It was a good loop. I drove the longest stage of my career, it was over 47 kilometres long. I am proud of it. It was very hot inside the car, but this kind of effort you feel unimaginable things at times and I felt cold. It is a very devastating stage for tyres, car and crew alike. We improve the pace according to our plan and we continue to learn our new car, so we are pleased with that. We will try to change the car settings for the next loop, to check if it works. My knowledge about this car is still not very good, so we want to try different possibilities
– said Kajetan Kajetanowicz, the LOTOS Rally Team driver.
The afternoon loop of Tour de Corse consists of the same three stages. The crews fight on Cap Corse (25.62 kms, at 14:38 CET), Desert des Agriates (14.45 kms, at 16:08) and Castagniccia (47.18 kms, at 17:14 CET) tests – the last one is the longest stage of the whole rally. The service break starts at 18:34 CET.
Starts of Kajetan Kajetanowicz are supported by strategic partner of the LOTOS Rally Team – Grupa LOTOS – as well as Delphi Technologies, Driving Experience and Pirelli.
Tour de Corse 2019 – unofficial standings after SS9 (WRC-2):
1. Andolfi / Scattolin (Italy, Skoda Fabia R5) 2:09:21.7 s
2. Camilli / Buresi (France, VW Polo GTI R5) +31.7 s
3. Gryazin / Fedorov (Russia, Skoda Fabia R5) +33.7 s
4. Kajetanowicz / Szczepaniak (Poland, VW Polo GTI R5) +39.6 s
5. Veiby / Andersson (Sweden, VW Polo GTI R5) +49.3 s
6. Katsuta / Barritt (Japan, Ford Fiesta R5) +3:09.7 s
7. Yates / Morgan (Great Britain, Skoda Fabia R5) +3:18.4 s
8. de Mevius / Wydaeghe (Belgium, Citroen C3 R5) +4:49.9 s
9. Bedoret / Walbrecq (Belgium, Skoda Fabia R5) +6:50.0 s
10. Pedro / Baldaccini (Italy, Ford Fiesta R5) +13:27.9 s
