It has been a successful day for Kajetan Kajetanowicz and Maciej Szczepaniak. The Polish duo maintained good and error-free pace, setting third-fastest times on every stage of the second loop. The ORLEN Rally Team crew strengthened their top-three position in the WRC2 Challenger standings, looking forward with optimism to the second leg.
This time all stages were run in competitive conditions, including the opening Pulperia test, cancelled during the first loop. Now the crews were able to complete this stage at speed and the ORLEN Rally Team duo started their streak of third places on consecutive tests. They maintained third position in the WRC2 Challenger standings and extended their advantage over fourth-placed rivals to over 24 seconds.
– Friday in Chile is already behind us. We showed efficient pace, avoiding mistakes. The stages were very fast, with lots of jumps. After one of them our car lost a bit of precision but the problem did not last long. We kept our line, without going off the road. Everything was under control, we barely touched the earth banks. Now it’s time for Saturday, a very demanding day for tyres – especially the second loop will be tough to complete, as we will drive on very abrasive gravel. This surface looks like concrete, heavy lorries loaded with wood drive on these roads every day. We heard that this gravel is mixed with some kind of metal which works on tyres like sandpaper. This is our challenge for Saturday but now we are in third position in the WRC2 Challenger – happy with this result
– Kajetan Kajetanowicz, the ORLEN Rally Team driver, commented after Friday.
The organisers have prepared two runs of three special stages for Saturday, starting with Pelun 1 test (15.65 kms) at 14:07 CET. Afterwards the crews will tackle Lota 1 (25.64 kms, at 15:01 CET) and the longest stage of the rally, Maria las Cruces (28.31 kms, at 16:05 CET). The second runs are planned for 20:07, 21:01 and 22:05 respectively.
Starts of Kajetan Kajetanowicz are supported by the title partner of the ORLEN Rally Team – ORLEN S.A., as well as technical partner Delphi, Pirelli, ORLEN OIL, ATC CARGO S.A. and SJS S.A.
Rally Chile, unofficial results after SS6 (WRC2 Challenger):
- Gryazin/Aleksandrov (Citroën C3 Rally2) 1:00:21.8
- Solans/Sanjuan (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +30.4
- Kajetanowicz/Szczepaniak (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +48.7
- Zaldivar/Der Ohannesian (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +1:12.8
- Scuncio/Roman (Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo) +1:43.8
- Martínez/Alvarez (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +1:44.6
- P. Heller/Olmos (Citroën C3 Rally2) +1:48.6
- A. Heller/Allende (Citroën C3 Rally2) +1:51.3
- V. Rosselot/Brizio (Citroën C3 Rally2) +2:15.9
- E. Rosselot/Cañete (Citroën C3 Rally2) +2:44.7
