Another extremely demanding leg of Rally Japan has come to an end. Kajetan Kajetanowicz and Maciej Szczepaniak finished the day with a stage win on the Toyota Stadium superspecial, topping the whole WRC2 and WRC2 Challenger field. Main rivals of the Polish crew in their quest for another World Rally Championship top-three finish have damaged their car today, lost over thirty minutes and fell way down the standings.
Saturday was even longer than the previous day. The crews left parc fermé at six in the morning and completed the final stage after thirteen hours on the road. Kajetanowicz and Szczepaniak maintained solid pace today – and what’s more important, avoided major mistakes. Their rivals, including Solans/Sanjuan, did not enjoy a trouble-free run. The main opponents of the ORLEN Rally Team crew damaged the suspension and had to repair their car on the special stage. At the end of the day they lost over 41 minutes and basically cannot challenge the Polish duo in their fight for sixth consecutive top-three finish in the World Championship standings.
– We finished day three of the competition on the same special stage which we ran at the beginning. Great show took place at the stadium, full of thousands of fans watching the action again. With their support and to our joy, we won this superspecial. After yesterday’s struggles and my error, when I crushed the exhaust and we lost power completely, our time loss is unfortunately huge. On the other hand, today’s good performance moved us closer to another top-three finish in the championship, for the sixth time in a row. It was our main goal. I am happy to be here, I enjoy driving a lot – both on the stadium, with so much grip, and on more slippery roads, with mud and leaves. There is still one day ahead of us – Sunday is longer than usual but we are ready, despite spending fourteen hours in the car for, second day in a row
– Kajetan Kajetanowicz, triple European Rally Champion, summed up the day.
Rally Japan ends on Sunday, with 70 kilometres of special stages to go. The crews start the final day with SS17 Nukata 1 (20.23 kms, at 23:39 CET), followed by SS18 Lake Mikawako 1 (13.98 km, at 0:35 CET) and another run of SS19 Nukata 2 (20.23 kms, at 1:38 CET). After 15-minutes service break they will repeat the Toyota Stadium Superspecial for the third time (2.15 kms, at 4:17 CET) and finish the rally with SS21 Power Stage Lake Mikawako 2 (13.98 kms, at 6:15 CET).
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 Japan, unofficial results after SS16 (WRC2 Challenger):
- Gryazin/Aleksandrov (Citroën C3 Rally2) 2:47:43.9
- Pajari/Mälkönen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +1:25.3
- Arai/Matsuo (Škoda Fabia R5) +2:16.7
- Kovalainen/Kitagawa (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +2:46.1
- Ingram/Kihurani (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +3:54.7
- Kajetanowicz/Szczepaniak (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +6:19.1
- Kogure/Luhtinen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +7:44.5
- Katsuta/Kimura (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +8:54.4
- Nutahara/Azuma (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +12:08.1
- Chwist/Heller (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +12:43.8
