Only a few hours remain until the start of Croatia Rally. The field of crews, ready to compete in round four of the 2026 World Rally Championship, features the ORLEN Rally Team duo of Kajetan Kajetanowicz and Maciej Szczepaniak.
Following one year’s break – with brief return to the European Rally Championship schedule – Croatia once again hosts the best rally crews of the world. The event, moved this year from Zagreb to the area of Rijeka, features a Polish duo of Kajetan Kajetanowicz and Maciej Szczepaniak, flying the national white and red colours on the special stages.
The official shakedown took place on Thursday morning. The Grobnik stage, just under 3.5-kms long, allowed the crews to perform final checks of their cars ahead of the competition. It was also a foretaste of upcoming days of Croatia Rally, with rally route consisting of technically demanding, tricky tarmac stages, with damaged and very dirty surface in some sections. Not only drivers and co-drivers have to perform well – the cutting-edge technology, supporting them in the fight for fractions of seconds, also plays a crucial role. The tyres, exclusively provided to the WRC cars by Hankook, are one of the key elements. The Korean tyre manufacturer, strengthening its position in motorsport, has joined forces with Kajetan Kajetanowicz, supporting the most successful Polish rally driver in his World Rally Championship campaign.
I am happy that our preparations for both the season and Croatia Rally are coming to an end. This evening we begin this very demanding round of the World Rally Championship. After a dozen or so months, we are back on tarmac stages. After the recce I already know that I haven’t driven such a difficult rally for a long time. There are a lot of cuts which you can use to your advantage, so it could be more of a gravel rally than a tarmac one. The stages are very demanding, most of them unfamiliar to me, but I am glad we are here. I love driving on asphalt, this is the surface I come from. This will be a very difficult rally, also for the tyres, due to many cuts and destroyed asphalt. However, we are relaxed, because Hankook has joined the roster of our partners and we are very proud of it. We will tackle these special stages together. I have a smile on my face and I think that no matter what happens, this smile will remain. I am doing what I love to do, I have an excellent team, a great car and I want to enjoy it. For sure there will be plenty of Polish fans along the stages. We saw a lot of white and red flags already during the shakedown. This rally is relatively close to Poland. The fans love these stages: they know the route is very challenging but also spectacular, despite tarmac surface. So I am glad that so many Polish fans arrived here. This will definitely motivate us to keep up a good pace
– said Kajetan Kajetanowicz, triple European Rally Champion.
The official starting ceremony is scheduled for this evening in the center of Rijeka, on the Korzo promenade, right on the Adriatic Sea coast. The competition begins on Friday morning, with eight special stages during the opening day. Kajto, Maciek and their rivals will tackle two passes of Vodice-Brest (14.12 kms), Lake Butoniga-Motovun (13.78 kms), Beram-Cerovlje (23.78 kms) and Učka (11.75 kms) stages.
Starts of Kajetan Kajetanowicz are supported by title partner of the ORLEN Rally Team – ORLEN S.A., as well as by technical partner Delphi, ORLEN OIL and Hankook.
