Kajetan Kajetanowicz and Maciej Szczepaniak have completed official shakedown ahead of Rally Portugal. In a few hours’ time the ORLEN Rally Team crew will cross the starting ramp, beginning the battle in their second outing of the 2025 campaign.
Rally Portugal is the fifth round of this year’s World Rally Championship schedule. Based in Matosinhos, close to Porto, this event is one of the WRC classics, present in the calendar since 1973 – with short breaks. This is also the second outing this year for Kajetanowicz and Szczepaniak.
Thursday’s schedule started with official shakedown. The Baltar stage has been used for this purpose for ten years, with only minor alterations. As usual, the ORLEN Rally Team crew completed only one pass of the shakedown, performing the final checks of their car.
– In a few hours’ time we start our second WRC round this year. Rally Portugal presents a huge challenge not only due to surface of the stages – which is changing, depending on weather conditions – but also because of record-breaking field. Most of our rivals know these stages very well, I remember just some of them – basically some parts from our previous outing here, three years ago. Of course we are not afraid of our competitors, we have never been. However, limited mileage aboard our new car does not make it easy for us. Portugal is a completely different event to Safari Rally. We chose a slightly more cautious setup there, here we have to take bigger risk – but I don’t know how much. It will be a great challenge but I am happy to be here. I feel a good flow with my car – I still don’t know a lot about it but I hope to learn more here
– Kajetan Kajetanowicz, triple European Rally Champion, said after the shakedown.
Following the shakedown, which does not count towards the rally classification, all crews drive over 100 kilometres south of Porto, to Coimbra. The official start of Rally Portugal takes place by the river Mondego and afterwards the competitor move to Figueira da Foz, on the Atlantic coast. A short superspecial takes place on streets of this town, starting at 20:05 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 and ORLEN OIL.
