28 August 2018
Baja Poland 2018 – Round 9, FIA Cross Country
Rally World Cup
.
-
Two MINI John Cooper Works Rally to compete at Baja Poland,
31st August-2nd September 2018. -
Polish cross-country rally stars Jakub ‘Kuba’ Przygonski and
Krzysztof Holowczyc line up on home soil in MINI John Cooper works
Rally cars. -
MINI driver Przygonski currently leads the 2018 FIA Cross
Country Rally World Cup championship. -
Polish ace Holowczyc looks to add another Baja Poland title
to his five previous victories.
Munich.
Round nine of the 2018 FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup is a
pivotal race for the top-three runners of this international series.
With only three rounds left to play out,
MINI’s Jakub “Kuba” Przygonski (POL) currently leads the Cross
Country Rally World Cup with 258 points to his name – only 57
points ahead of his nearest rival (201 points), and 74 over the
third placed competitor (184).
The maximum available points up to the end of the final round (Baja
Portalegre 500, 25-27 October 2018) of the Rally World Cup are 120.
This means that Przygonski and co-driver Tom Colsoul (BEL) will be
under even more pressure from their nearest rivals.
However, the MINI John Cooper Works Rally car is renowned for being
an ultra-reliable rally car and, at least for Baja Poland, the Polish
star has the additional edge of driving on home ground, where he
finished second at last year’s event. So, maybe there is more pressure
for Przygonski’s rivals as they first have to play catch up against a
MINI crew that is in form and driving the leading car prepared by MINI
Motorsport’s motorsport partner X-raid.
Friday 31st August will see competitors take advantage of
the shakedown tests to fine tune their cars ahead of the evening’s
Super Special Stage of just over seven kilometres, which will also
determine starting positions for Stage 2 on Saturday (1st
September). The majority of the action will again involve the military
range in Drawsko Pomorskie (approx 220km). By the time Baja Poland has
finished on Sunday (2nd September) the competitors will
have driven 736.38 km, of which 505.08 km are timed special stages.
Also to line up at the 2018 Baja Poland for the MINI Family is former
international long-distance rally specialist Krzysztof Holowczyc
(POL), who now only competes at his favoured home race, Baja Poland,
because of what racing on home soil means to him. After winning Baja
Poland a previous five times, Holowczyc will give it his all in
another MINI John Cooper Works Rally to secure win number six and give
his league of fans another reason to celebrate. Co-driver for
Holowczyc is once again fellow countryman Lukasz Kurzeja.
Jakub ‘Kuba’ Przygonski: “Baja Poland is coming. Tom
and I are prepared and happy with the work we have done so far. After
the Hungarian Baja, where we finished second, we really look forward
to Baja Poland because it is the one race here in Poland where we can
show the Dakar car. There will be a lot of fans from Poland and we
will try to push to be on top of the podium.
“The terrain for Baja Poland is marked by bulldozer so we can go
fast. There are sandy conditions in the forest, which makes it nice to
drive and it feels like you are going at 200 kilometres per hour
through the trees!
“We are leading in the World Cup so this race is really important for
us to keep that leading place. Of course, we will be fighting hard to
achieve this.”
For more information about Baja Poland 2018, please visit the host’s
event home page here.
FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup 2018 calendar