[ERC] Rally Poland 2023

[manthey]

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.

what a race and victory for the new ferrari 296!

[Jarek Z]

I was also hoping for some more comments as it seems I missed following a nice battle between Sesks and Paddon.

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/

[eddy707]

Nice pictures Jarek!
I hope that now the Poles will return the favour and come in large numbers to Liepaja. See you all there

[Fast Eddie WRC]

I agree, excellent photos Jarek !

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...

[Jarek Z]

Crash into a lake from another angle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmPkuiuGMho

Please note the behaviour of the stork at 0:07

[Neige]

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.