On the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, the weather, as usual, keeps messing around and causes quite a headache for both the organizers and participants of winter rallies. The participants of the Zarasai and Alūksne rallies recently had to look for other places to grind the studs of the sports tires. A helping hand was given by Estonians. Next weekend in the south of the country, the Otepää talveralli, event of the Estonian Championship will be held. It doesn’t seem like there are any miracles with the weather either, but there is frost on the roads, and the autumn leaves are hidden under a small but sufficient layer of snow.
5 Lithuanian crews will come from Lithuania to race with Estonia’s fastest and World Rally Champion itself, 3 of which will represent the interests of the N5 class.
Starting number #14 was given to Rokas Steponavičius, who switched from RWD class to N5. He bought a Ford Fiesta N5 and next to him will sit Dovydas Kevirtis, who was reading the pace notes to Justas Tamašauskas last season.
Before leaving for the Oteppa rally, the feeling is twofold – anticipation and uncertainty. I was really looking forward to the first outing in the car, but I wanted it to be tests, not a rally.
We are squeezed into the frames due to the weather conditions, so we could not organize normal tests on the closed special stage. To date, I have only tried the car at the Automoto park and drove about 15 km, so I really did not have time to understand car capabilities and driving nuances.
Dovydas and I didn’t have the opportunity to train and work together as a crew, but we are mature people, so we look at this rally as a test, not as a competition, so if we make a mistake, we won’t be angry with each other.
We are going to have a good time and get to know the N5 technology.
Rokas Steponavičius
The sixteenth number went to Kajus Samsonas and Justas Vičiūnas. Martynas Samsonas himself successfully tested Kajus’ new Volkswagen Polo N5 in the Arctic Lapland Rally a few weeks ago. Kajus Polo tried it on Tuesday afternoon:
We feel very good, finally we will be able to compete with the VW Polo N5. We will drive as fast as we can, neither faster nor slower. The more we drive, the more we learn, the more…
We had half an hour tests this week where I finally got the chance to test drive the VW Polo N5. I was very surprised by how it controls, accelerates, brakes and jumps. There is absolutely nothing to compare with last year’s car 🙂
Kajus Samsonas
#41 went to Vilmantas Padegimas, who, unlike Kajus with Rokas, has already warmed his hands and feet in Lapland with his new purchase Renault Clio N5. This time, the permanent co-driver of Vilmantas – Tomas Zamara will sit in the co-drivers seat.
After returning from the Arctic Lapland Rally, it took a week to recover. I was a little sick and I felt broken a litlle – age takes its toll. Now everything seems to be fine, the car is ready – we will go to Estonia.
The goal is one – to finish, to continue gathering experience and sports kilometers. Tomas needs to get used to the car and the pace, we’ll see how he will do, maybe we’ll try to push litlle harder in one special stage.
We had gone to the Automoto park, I wanted to drive my family with a car, also I gave my colleague to try the N5 car and the plan was to drive with Tomas also, but the track got so bad that we decided to save the car, so Tomas didint get a chance to drive in the car. It’s okay, he will get a chance in special stage 🙂
Vilmantas Padegimas
Otepää talveralli is a one-day format – all the action will take place on Saturday, February 4th. The route card consists of 4 different special stages, which will be run twice each. Each is 12 – 15 kilometers long. A total of 110.38 sports kilometers. There will be two short and one longer service area between them. Special stages – very fast, winding with a number of smaller or larger crests. Many of the roads have large ditches on the roadsides, and in some special stages, we will also see an asphalt surface, which in the case of a small amount of snow can cause a lot of problems for the tires of the participants.
Itinerary (2023-02-04)
| SS1 | Kaagvere I | 12.28 km | 08:03 |
| SS2 | Pärsimäe I | 12,89 km | 08:47 |
| Service zone A (Otepää) | |||
| SS3 | Kaagvere II | 12.28 km | 10:40 |
| SS4 | Pärsimäe II | 12,89 km | 11:24 |
| Service zone B (Otepää) | |||
| SS5 | Lustiaia I | 15,04 km | 14:38 |
| SS6 | Piigaste I | 14,98 km | 15:13 |
| Service zone C (Otepää) | |||
| SS7 | Lustiaia II | 15,04 km | 17:01 |
| SS8 | Piigaste II | 14,98 km | 17:36 |