Kajetan Kajetanowicz and Maciej Szczepaniak do not slow down and face another gravel challenge in the World Rally Championship. The ORLEN Rally Team duo get ready for competition in iconic Acropolis Rally Greece, called “The Rally of Gods”.
Kajetanowicz and Szczepaniak are in the middle of a real rally marathon. They took part in Rally Portugal mid-May and competed in Sardegna just two weeks ago – bringing trophies for second place in both WRC2 Challenger and WRC2 standings from picturesque Mediterranean island, as well as solid haul of points. Gravel triple header of challenging events will be completed by the Greek championship counter.
The Polish crew arrived in Greece, starting recce on Monday morning. This procedure is planned for three days, as special stages are scattered across different parts of the country. The ORLEN Rally Team had planned a testing session on Sunday but it was cancelled. Due to strike of seafarers on ferries, rally car of Kajetanowicz and Szczepaniak did not arrive in the Corinth Canal area on time. All team members do their best to get a chance to work on car setup on Wednesday afternoon, if only during a brief test.
Iconic Acropolis is one of the oldest world-famous rallies in the calendar. Its history goes back to the 1950s and it was included in the WRC calendar in 1973. It quickly became one of the classics, even though it lost the calendar slot for a couple of years in the previous decade. “The Rally of Gods”, as it is often called – by the way, this is one of its official names – is famous for technically difficult, twisty special stages with rough surface, which tests suspension and tyres to their limit. This year the rally returns to traditional June date, so thick dust will present additional challenge, together with extremely high temperatures.
Kajetanowicz will tackle Greek gravel stages for eighth time in his career. Triple European Rally Champion has overall Acropolis Rally victories under his belt, winning the event in 2015 and 2017, en route to his ERC titles. He enjoyed great results on the WRC level in 2021 (WRC3 win) or 2023 and 2024 (top-three finishes in the WRC2 Challenger standings).
After successful Rally Italia Sardegna, where we lost less than six seconds to the winners, it is time for Acropolis Rally. I like this event, I have good memories, but this is a very demanding World Rally Championship round. It seems that the conditions could be even hotter than in Sardegna, also inside the car. Gravel stages in Greece are very demanding for tyres, cars and of course for us – the crew. We have completed the first part of recce, there are some new stages. The organisers did not disappoint, degree of challenge is appropriate for the world championship level. Unfortunately, due to reasons beyond our control we were not able to complete standard, all-day testing session. Seafarers on ferries went on strike and caused a delay in arrival of our rally car but our whole team work on enabling us to test even for a short session. Of course it will not be possible to check every doubt I have in my mind with regards to our car. I am still discovering it. Special stages of Acropolis Rally have different grip and characteristics to what we experienced in Portugal or Sardegna. However, we will use similar setup and I think that lack of proper testing should not harm us. We are optimistic, I will try to enjoy driving, as usual. I say “try”, as I have to be prepared for tough challenge. I know there will be plenty of fans from Poland. It’s great they can combine holidays with supporting us and watching our rally
– Kajetan Kajetanowicz said ahead of the rally.
The organisers have prepared seventeen special stages and almost 346 kilometres of battle against the clock – which makes it the second longest 2025 round, after Safari Rally Kenya, out of eleven events which have revealed their schedules so far. The entry list features 68 crews, Kajetan and Maciek have 26 opponents in their fight for more points in the WRC2 Challenger standings.
Although Acropolis Rally marks an end of successive outings of the ORLEN Rally Team, which started back in early May, Kajetanowicz will not spend much time away from steering wheel – swapping his rally Toyota for… a Fiat 126p. Straight from Greece, Kajto will head to Warsaw and take part in “Great Journey of The Toddlers”, which starts on 1 July. The most successful Polish rally driver has cooperated with this charity project as official ambassador since its inception. This year he will be back aboard popular “Toddler” not only to raise funds for children injured in road accidents but also to educate and promote road safety. The expedition heads north this time, visiting for example Sweden, Latvia and Lithuania.
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.
