II round of Polish Rally Championship took place last weekend. Thirty three teams entered the the only gravel round that takes place in the north part of Poland near Baltic Sea. Even though gravel rallies are not popular in Poland drivers enjoyed combination of fast corners and technical sections.
Entry list included seven teams in R5 cars with current championship leader Filip Nivette and experienced gravel driver and Latvian Rally Champion Dominikas Butvilas. Six teams entered open N category including Bryan Bouffier – three times Polish Rally Champion.
As expected Bouffier was not only the fastest in his class but also challenged Nivette and Butvilas, finishing only 22 seconds behind Nivette(including 10s penalty) on day 1.
Day 2 saw Nivette turning up the pace and winning rally with 52,3s margin over Butvilas with two Skoda Fabia R5 on top of final classification. Third place for Bouffier just +1,19,1s behind Nivette. His dominant performance in open N category led to more than 6 minutes win over the second Topolewski. Jarosław Kołtun ended fourth, losing 17,8s to top three showing solid performance.
Debut of young driver Kacper Wróblewski is worth mentioning. He drove his Peugeot 208 R2 to top 10 finish leaving more experienced drivers as Gryc and Chmielewski behind.
25 out of 33 drivers got to the finish line. The rally was fun to watch. We hope to see more gravel action in Polish Championship Calendar.
photo Maciej Niechwiadowicz