Kajetan Kajetanowicz and Maciej Szczepaniak scored their sixth consecutive top-three finish in the World Rally Championship! The Polish crew claimed fourth position in Rally Japan and their points’ tally scored over the course of the season allowed them to hold third position in the WRC2 Challenger category. The ORLEN Rally Team duo write a unique history and as the only crew in recent years performs at such a high level, confirmed by another podium position.
Seven rallies, seven finishes – six of them in top four. This is a brief summary of their season: Kajetanowicz and Szczepaniak started the 2024 campaign in March, winning Safari Rally Kenya. Afterwards the Polish duo claimed fourth place in Sardegna and fifteenth in ORLEN Rally Poland, showing great pace despite going off the road. The second part of the season was more intense: over the course of three months Kajto and Maciek stood on the podium in Greece and Chile, adding fourth places in Central European Rally and Rally Japan.
Kajetan Kajetanowicz, co-driven by Maciej Szczepaniak, started his full WRC journey in 2019, scoring second position in the WRC2 standings. Next year he was third in the WRC3 and again second in the WRC3 in 2021 (with co-drivers championship title claimed by Szczepaniak). The Polish duo added another third place in the WRC2 Open category and finally won the championship the following year, in the WRC2 Challenger standings. This year they claimed third position in this category, among almost 120 crews which took part in this championship. Over the past six years they have competed in R5/Rally2 cars, scoring podium positions in the most important rally events of the world.
– We finish the last 2024 World Rally Championship weekend in Japan with smiles on our faces. We have achieved what we wanted – another podium. This is our sixth consecutive season with a top-three finish. This is a great thing for our small team from Poland, with huge support of our fans, partners and families. Thank you, my darling, for your understanding. I think that we achieve great things thanks to our commitment. I am happy, being able to do what we love to do – at the highest level. Such days reward those long weeks of preparation ahead of each rally. It’s an emotional moment. We are in Japan for the third time, we have different memories from this country, but every time this fantastic rally meant a top-three finish at the end of the season. We are already thinking about the next year. I hope you will keep your fingers crossed for us – and thanks for being with us. We did it again
– Kajetan Kajetanowicz, the ORLEN Rally Team driver, summed up the rally.
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 WRC2 Challenger results:
- Gryazin/Aleksandrov (Citroën C3 Rally2) 3:33:45.3
- Pajari/Mälkönen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +1:46.5
- Arai/Matsuo (Škoda Fabia R5) +3:20.0
- Kajetanowicz/Szczepaniak (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +6:46.6
- Kogure/Luhtinen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +8:48.7
- Katsuta/Kimura (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +11:23.5
- Nutahara/Azuma (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +15:17.1
- Chwist/Heller (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +17:17.7
- Fukunaga/Saiga (Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo) +18:49.6
- Solans/Sanjuan (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) +41:15.2
Unofficial 2024 WRC2 Challenger championship standings:
- Sami Pajari – 136 points
- Nikolay Gryazin – 130 points
- Kajetan Kajetanowicz – 94 points
- Lauri Joona – 78 points
- Jan Solans – 71 points
- Joshua McErlean – 60 points
- Mikko Heikkilä – 55 points
- Robert Virves – 54 points
- Georg Linnamäe – 54 points
- Fabrizio Zaldivar – 54 points
