Kajetan Kajetanowicz and Maciej Szczepaniak wrapped up the Friday’s leg of Rally Chile with fourth-fastest time on sixth special stage. The ORLEN Rally Team crew compete in their next World Rally Championship event, holding sixth position in the WRC2 standings, with narrow gap to a top-three place. They also maintain third position in the WRC2 Challenger classification, for privateer crews.
On the second loop of Friday’s leg Kajetanowicz and Szczepaniak picked up the pace. The Polish crew competes in Chile for the first time, getting to know these extremely difficult roads. They started the afternoon with eighth-fastest result on special stage number four, backing it up with two fourth-fastest times on fifth and sixth test.
– It’s been a good Friday for us in Chile. I am doing my best to avoid mistakes and also trying to drive fast at the same time. I enjoy my driving more, feeling better in the car with new, a bit more aggressive setup. Tyre wear is lower than we feared and I am happy about it. We will try to make a good tyre choice for Saturday – what’s interesting, we need to choose our tyres already on Friday but everybody is in the same, difficult situation. Saturday’s stages are completely different, with higher tyre wear, so many things can happen. We are ready to fight. However, first we need to get some sleep
– Kajetan Kajetanowicz, the ORLEN Rally Team driver, commented after Friday.
Traditionally, Saturday is the longest day in the World Championship round – two runs of three stages amount to 154 competitive kilometres (SS7/10 Chivillingo – 27.19 kms; SS8/11 Rio Lia – 21.09 kms; SS9/12 Maria de las Cruces – 28.72 kms). The first one starts at 7:57 local time – at 12:57 CET.
Starts of Kajetan Kajetanowicz are supported by the title partner of the ORLEN Rally Team – PKN ORLEN, as well as technical partner Delphi Technologies, Pirelli, ATC CARGO S.A., PLATINUM ORLEN OIL brand, QUAZAR LOTOS OIL brand and SJS S.A.
Rally Chile 2023, unofficial WRC2 standings after SS6:
- Pajari/Mälkönen (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) 1:00:53.3
- Solberg/Edmondson (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +13.3
- Gryazin/Aleksandrov (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +51.4
- Greensmith/Andersson (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +56.5
- Lindholm/Hämäläinen (Hyundai i20 N Rally2) +1:04.7
- Kajetanowicz/Szczepaniak (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +1:18.4
- Rossel/Dunand (Citroën C3 Rally2) +1:48.8
- Fernández/Rozada (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +3:10.9
- Scunio/Roman (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +3:11.2
- Rosselot/Cañete (Citroën C3 Rally2) +3:11.8
