Leg two of Rally Italia Sardegna, round five of the 2021 World Rally Championship is underway. Kajetan Kajetanowicz and Maciej Szczepaniak, rally leaders until the final metres of the last stage on Friday, returned to action after being forced to retire yesterday. With additional motivation, they showed excellent pace right from the start, setting second-fastest times on all four stages and significantly closing the gap to their nearest rivals, by almost three minutes!
Although it is not easy to maintain focus in such moments, Kajetanowicz proves his masterclass yet again. With very good pace, he is able to fight even with the factory crews on the stages. Rallies are very unpredictable and everything could change when there is still more than half of the rally to go. The LOTOS Rally Team crew hold a points-paying top ten position in the WRC-3 standings, looking forward to gain more places in the afternoon.
– It’s a character-building experience. Our driving is quite good but we’d prefer to lead the rally, like we did yesterday. This sport teaches us not to give up in difficult circumstances, to draw conclusions and to push further. Today we compete on stages which we already know from past seasons, but the configuration is slightly different. We are not fully upbeat, as that yesterday’s incident casts a long shadow, but still there are positive emotions inside the car. We take the day as it is, so there is a smile on my face. We are already past the halfway point of the rally, high temperatures are quite challenging. A lot of things could still happen and this is why we are not going to take it easy
– says Kajetan Kajetanowicz, the LOTOS Rally Team driver.
Starts of Kajetan Kajetanowicz are supported by strategic partner of the LOTOS Rally Team – Grupa LOTOS – as well as Delphi Technologies, Pirelli, SJS Driving Experience and Grupa Sikora.
Rally Italia Sardegna 2021 – unofficial WRC-3 results after SS12:
- Rossel/Coria (France, Citroën C3 Rally2) 2:17:31.6 s
- López/Vallejo (Spain, Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo) +43.3 s
- Solans/Sanjuan de Eusebio (Spain, Citroën C3 Rally2) +57.7 s
- Ingram/Whittock (Great Britain, Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo) +3:20.2 s
- Heller/Martí (Chile/Spain, Citroën C3 Rally2) +3:21.5 s
- Zaldivar/del Barrio (Paraguay/Spain, Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo) +3:45.4 s
- Fernández/Garcia (Chile/Argentina, Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo) +4:19.5 s
- Ciamin/Roche (France, Citroën C3 Rally2) +5:54.8 s
- Kremer/Kremer (Germany, Volkswagen Polo GTI R5) +6:19.3 s
- Kajetanowicz/Szczepaniak (Poland, Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo) +9:50.6 s
