The 2024 World Rally Championship comes to an end in Japan. Kajetan Kajetanowicz and Maciej Szczepaniak enter the season’s showdown with good memories from their last outing there, when they claimed a podium spot in the WRC2 and WRC2 Challenger standings, wrapping up their championship title. The ORLEN Rally Team duo feel optimistic ahead of the final challenge, although logistic problems prevented them from completing a testing session with their car.
Kajetanowicz, Szczepaniak and their team have already arrived in the Land of the Rising Sun, where they were supposed to test their rally car ahead of the rally. Unfortunately, a delay of cargo ship meant that the car arrived too late and it was not possible to test it. Despite this setback, the Polish duo remain in good mood ahead of recce and they want to their best on Japanese special stages.
Rally Japan marks the end of the 2024 championship. Following a series of good outings in Greece, Chile and Central European Rallies, Kajetan and Maciek hold third position in the WRC2 Challenger standings, aiming for their sixth consecutive top-three finish in the final World Rally Championship standings.
– We are already in Japan, still suffering from some jet lag effects. The final round of the season means yet another battle for our sixth consecutive top-three finish in the championship standings. The rally week hasn’t started in the best way for us, as the cargo ship with our car arrived a bit too late and we did not manage to unload it on time, due to customs procedures – so we will start the rally without usual pre-event testing. However, we maintain our positive approach, maybe with even more motivation because of these setbacks. In contrast to us, other competitors were able to prepare better for this rally but we are going to focus on our job – to complete recce, make good pace notes and drive at decent pace during the whole weekend. It will be a long, tough rally. Plenty of leaves will cover the roads – this is autumn after all and we know it after past two years of competing here. We are familiar with some stages but there are some new ones – including a test with deep cuts, which is a novelty here. Bearing that in mind, I know that the car set-up will be even more important. I hope for correct decisions but they will taken a bit blindly. Hopefully I will get good feeling and our whole team will do a great job, like last year and during the whole 2024 season
– Kajetan Kajetanowicz, the WRC2 Challenger champion, says ahead of the rally.
Official shakedown ahead of the rally takes place on Wednesday night, at 1:01 CET. Afterwards the crews will tackle 21 special stages with combined length of over 302 kilometres.
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.
