ERC: Jännerrally / Rally review
“There was a lot of gravel” (Kubica). A little bit
of everything then! Many drivers were in trouble
early on as Gryazin, Aigner and Cerny al reported offs. Thankfully none of them went down for
the count just yet.
The first two stages go to Kajetanowicz who
opens up an early on the second stage. Baumschlager is penalized ten seconds for a jump
start while Kubica suffered what is reffered to as
‘a moment’ and dropped around ten seconds as
well. As the opening three stage loop comes to a
close though, Kubica hits back with a stage win
narrowing the gap to Kajetanowicz. There will
be some serious competition ahead.
Changes
The second loop of stages brought some fireworks up front. First it was Raimund Baumschlager who stunned the opposition on stage
four. He won the stage and moved up into the
lead of the rally. As the sun broke through and
temperatures rose, the choice of tyres became Switching gears
even more difficult, working to the advantage of Despite leading the rally, Baumschlager was not
the experienced Baumschlager.
happy with his Skoda, feeling his gearbox ratios
were too short. He changed the setup for stages
Most drivers stuck to their studded tyres but as seven and eight but was even more disappointthe snow and ice started to melt, regular winter ed, now feeling a lack of power was costing him.
tyres proved much better suited to the condi- Czech ace Vaclav was the main beneficiary as
tions. Baumschlager was the only one to take he snatched the lead. Rigth behind him was Kuthe gamble and was rewarded for his courage. bica who found the conditions very difficult, but
Both Pech and Kubica were on the studded was also learning a lot. “There is a lot of gravel
tyres losing a lot of time to Baumsc hlager. To on the road. It’s very strange to switch from icy
make things worse for Kubica, a puncture near roads with studs to a dry set-up and dry tyres.”
the end of the stage dropped him back even further. On the next stage Kajetanowicz was more When the light goes out
than eager to pick up the challenge and hit back To add another aspect to already impressive line
with a win, closing the gap to Baumschlager. Af- of difficulties associated with the Jännerrallye,
ter another fast start on stage six, things went the final stages of the opening day were held in
wrong for the Pole though. He went off and dam- the dark.
aged the rear of his Fiesta so severely that he
was not able to continue the event.
32/40
Kubica gets some exoert advice...
Andreas Aigner like Consani now drives a Peugeot too.