Sixteen gravel special stages await the competitors in Rally Italia Sardegna. Kajetan Kajetanowicz and Maciej Szczepaniak join the field in the forthcoming World Rally Championship round. The ORLEN Rally Team crew have completed their preparations ahead of the competition on picturesque Italian island.
Just two weeks after conclusion of Rally Portugal the Polish crew moved to Sardegna, for round six of this year’s World Rally Championship, which gets underway this Friday. For Kajetanowicz and Szczepaniak, this is their third outing in this campaign. They scored valuable points in the WRC2 Challenger standings, both in Kenya and Portugal.
Although Kajetan and Maciek remain on gravel roads, special stages in Sardegna are completely different to routes of Safari and Portugal rallies. This is why proper preparation and finding the right setup for their Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 are so important. The ORLEN Rally Team completed two days of testing, on two stages. Roads in northern part of Sardegna reflected the characteristics of the special stages which Kajetanowicz and Szczepaniak will tackle during the rally. It was twisty, with rough surface, thick dust and hot temperatures. The heat, challenging for competitors and their machines alike, is one of the trademarks of this event – based this year in seaside town of Olbia.
Kajetanowicz will compete in Sardegna for the seventh time. Although he made his WRC debiut in 2016, during Rally Poland, his full-time World Rally Championship career started two years later – here, in Italy. Kajto has usually done good job on technical, gravel roads in Sardegna, winning the Challenger category and claiming podium spots in both WRC2 and WRC3 categories.
– Rally Italia Sardegna is just around the corner and we have completed our testing session, already here – in Italy. This island is beautiful and I think it’s a great holiday destination but we did not arrive here to rest. During rather short but intensive two days of testing we already managed to sweat it out. This is going to be a hot rally – the atmosphere is always heated and temperatures inside the car will be high. Difficult special stages await us, including some novelties, and of course the competition is extremely strong – as usual in events such as Portugal, Greece or Sardegna. I am happy to be here. Now we need to get a good rhythm right from the beginning and enjoy driving. Keep your fingers crossed for the whole ORLEN Rally Team
– Kajetan Kajetanowicz said ahead of the rally.
Rally Italia Sardegna appeared in the World Rally Championship calendar over twenty years ago and it has been a regular fixture ever since, apart from 2010. For this year’s edition the organisers have prepared a route of almost 1200 kilometres, with 320 kilometres of special stages. The entry list consists of 68 cars, with over 30 crews – including Kajetan and Maciek – in the WRC2 Challenger category.
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.
