News

Poland new to World Rally Championship 24-6-09

This weekend’s eighth round of the 2010 FIA World Rally Championship returns to Poland 36 years on from the last time the series carved through its roads.

Rally Poland is the second oldest rallying event in the world after the classic Rallye Monte Carlo, and makes a return to the WRC calendar in 2009 after having been part of the inaugural FIA World Rally Championship for manufacturers in 1973. On that occasion only three of the 62 starters finished the two-day rally that covered 55 stages and 750 competitive kilometres – more than twice the length of this weekend’s encounter.

The event continued as an annual all-tarmac national rally, until 2005 when it became an all-gravel event over fast and flowing roads in the hilly Mazurian Lake district in the north-east of Poland. The event’s headquarters are in Mikolajki, a tourist city known as the Mazurian Pearl, 230 km north of Warsaw and close to the border with Russia. The location means large crowds are expected as fans can gain easy access from across central Europe. The special stages are a mix of forest and open country roads, weaving through picturesque green countryside that many have likened to Finland. While the surface is generally sandy with plenty of loose gravel on top, many roads are harder after extensive improvement programmes.

With 55 teams entered for Rally Poland, it also counts as a round of the Junior World Rally Championship (J-WRC). Special stages will be new to most competitors, necessitating additional care when making reconnaissance notes of the course on the Tuesday and Wednesday.

The unknown conditions create a level playing field and will heighten competition between top-billed rival manufacturer teams Citroen and Ford. While Citroen’s Sebastien Loeb has a seven point lead in the drivers’ standings, two successive victories by the Ford team have closed the gap.

The action begins on Thursday evening with a super special stage in Mikolajki, next to the service park, a repeat of which also closes the event on Sunday afternoon. All three days’ competition are based north-east of the town with drivers tackling 18 stages covering 352.00 km. This Eastern Bloc location is in the middle of summer as was the previous round, Acropolis Rally Greece, but conditions will be considerably more temperate.