Aleks Lesk
@alekslesk
Mabellini rolled in same place where was 3 crashes first pass #erclive #RallyPoland
Picture rallypl facebook
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fwpv-OmW...pg&name=medium
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Aleks Lesk
@alekslesk
Mabellini rolled in same place where was 3 crashes first pass #erclive #RallyPoland
Picture rallypl facebook
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fwpv-OmW...pg&name=medium
Very tough weekend for BRC Champion Osian Pryce. After many months out of a rally car, then adapting to the Skoda was a big challenge... and then having to open the road on top of that.
Glad to see him staying positive and looking forward to the next rally.
Proper job done by Sesks, 23 year old young guy fighting with much more experienced competitors (Paddon, Ostberg). Well done!
Great job by Sesks, with two more fast gravel events coming up maybe he can fight for the championship too.
Perfect drive also by Paddon, doing all he could while having no spare tyre on Day 2. Great 2nd place and even PS points all help to extend his ERC lead.
Congratulations to Sesks! After his stellar performance in Latvia last year, it his his second win in ERC. Way to go!
What a freak accident of Kramer, to fall into the lake in such place. What was he thinking?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzTsK2n5r8E
Another accident at the same place:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMFU3j0lhFE
Just 5 pages of comments here !
There were 23 pages for Rally Fafe. What is going on ?
Perhaps there was no one able to comment on this forum, because people actually visted the rally (crowds not seen since 2017), and there was very little LTE available (cause rally is located in "wild" region of Poland).
Main themes of picnic talks were: why so many people? Is it a change of date? The weather? Good starting list? All of these reasons?
Actually, I can understand the silence a bit. To follow all WRC and ERC live-coverage requires a lot of time. It just takes entire weekends off and if you have some other responsibilities in life (read: family) you just can not follow all.
From competition wise, for me, ERC is quite far ahead from WRC. But in WRC, people are into it also because of Rally1 cars.
From weather point of view - good weather was supporting spectating rally on spot and was not supporting to watch rally at home :) I think the bad weather before the rally was good for rally - it was not that dry and dusty.
Coverage - ERC covers basically at least 15 cars. A lot of times it's twice more than on WRC events. It means, it produces twice more rally-stars and personas to follow than WRC, but it all takes time. Like I wrote before, so far it's fun to watch stage-end interviews, those are not polished by PR-departments and drives answer like they naturally answers - making jokes, sometimes quite dirty-ones.
One more thing I noticed and liked, and maybe a bit surprise for me, was mature approach and cool-head reality - good example was Sesks, stage end interviews from stage-end to stage-end wanted to develop some fighting talks Sesks vs Paddon or pressure talks to Sesks but Sesks always answered clearly that he is doing is job (enjoying the rally) and ignored the hook. Also Paddon, he had punctures and respected the speed from Sesks - he did not claim that "without punctures I could win the rally" or "I was fastest" etc (or "I got most of the punctures"). 3rd place - Marczyk, he was many times asked or hinted that is he disappointed that he can not fight for the win or falling out from battle etc. He stayed calm-head and clear-minded and said that he thinks that this is their pace, others are just faster and there is no point to overdrive from what they have.
Leg 2 only:
* 1. Sesks
* 2. Heikkilä +19.5
* 3. Ostberg +21.3
* 4. Marczyk +23.5
* 5. Paddon +31.4 (had punctures and took on stage easy to attack on PowerStage)
Fight for the podium places were quite clear for Sunday, but the fight for 4th was open. On Sunday Ostberg and Heikkilä found the speed (and/or fixed setup) and it was interesting to follow.
To conclude all that, I'm afraid I will lost many more weekends now for following rally...
I was wondering (worrying) that the strong start to the season by Paddon and the relatively poor starts by others doing the full Championship - Ostberg, Llarena etc - was making people less interested, thinking that the Title is a foregone conclusion.
I like ERC, and most of the rallies are very exiting and it is close fighting in the top class from many.
Juniorclasses are usually also better in ERC than in WRC, and they have 2wd as a championship.
Rally TV need to have expert commentators that are or have been drivers, and they need to get in people that are not only brits. Many of them talk too fast for non native speakers.
Well, I follow the rally but didn’t have time to make comments.
The global level in the series is clearly better than last year: but yeah, for sure, Paddon has already taken a good margin. Let’s hope Ostberg or Sesks can make some results in Latvia and Sweden to be in contention but he sounds better on tarmac then.
I follow also ERC Junior: a bit a pity for Schulz who did some really good time for a newcomer; Dapra not that simple, if Nore can repeat this in Latvia and Sweden, he could become contender even if he is really weaker on tarmac (quite strange season with a big split between first half on fast gravel and second half on tarmac).
And even if it’s not Junior, I follow the results of the Japanese guys: well, as expected, they have a LOT of job to do to reach the level; they did some good times (they cumulate 10 stage wins + 8 podium stages in RC4, especially Yamamoto the most talented of them IMO) but really inconsistant ... only positive is Kogure (the weakest of the 3) that has succeeded in finishing above Dapra with some good times in the last day.
My pick of the fan videos... really shows the speed of these guys !
https://youtu.be/U8aTE_NvoBM
To be honest, it was a busy weekend of motorsport, and my primary focus was on my favourite race of the whole year, the N24; though I kept in touch with Poland.
I am also disappointed with the lack of any discussion about the rally. Was it so boring?
I don't agree with such opinion, so let me share my impressions from this year's Rally Poland. We spent 3 days on the rally and totally enjoyed this event. The weather was great and the rally was exciting to watch and follow the results. I was especially impressed with the speed of Martins Sesks. I knew he was quick on gravel, but I didn't expect such stage times and maturity from him. His duel with Hayden Paddon was great to follow. But the biggest surprise of the rally for me was Joshua McErlean, who was not only fast, but also very spectacular.
The biggest disappointment were Pontus Tidemand's stage times. What happened with him?
We bought a 1-month subscription of ERC Rally.TV (or whatever it is called), so we were watching footage from the stages on our way to the next stage. It was the first time for me to watch it and I have to say I enjoyed it. Some commentators try to over-dramatize things a little too much (especially women), but the video footage is good and up-to-date. I usually don't care about stage-end interviews, but this time they were more interesting, especially comments from Ostberg, who felt lost, didn't know what to do to improve his driving and called himself "an old dog" :)
But the comment of the weekend came from Josh McErlean, who said this about rally driving on SS11:
"I think you should jump in here and take a go! Every man, woman and child should have a go at this! Good fun!" :)
In total we saw 8 spots:
- Free practice
- Qualifying Stage
- SS-2 Swietajno 1
- SS-4 Wieliczki 1
- SS-5 Swietajno 2
- SS-7 Wieliczki 2
- SS-9 Barczewo 1
- SS-11 Gmina Mragowo 1
We saw many fans from the Czech Republic, Latvia and Finland. Especially Czech Erik Cais' fans were very loud, singing songs, waving flags etc. I liked the atmosphere of the event.
I'd like you to invite you to my photo gallery from this rally. I didn't take photos for a couple of years, but on this rally I tried it again, so it's a comeback :)
https://www.ewrc-results.com/photo/7...land-2023/473/
Nice pictures Jarek!
I hope that now the Poles will return the favour and come in large numbers to Liepaja. See you all there
I agree, excellent photos Jarek ! :cool:
Also a very good summary of the rally and the surprising speed of some drivers and lack of it from others.
In particular McErlean is progressing well now, and I saw how spectacular he was on all the fan videos ! Plus his stage-end comment reminded me so much of Craig Breen...
Crash into a lake from another angle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmPkuiuGMho
Please note the behaviour of the stork at 0:07 :)
Hi there!
Had a small talk with Martins after the Rally Poland. Few good points he had :)
http://rally-week.com/m-sesks-r-fran...lly-poland-23/
And there is more interviews with him from every ERC round so far.