Tomas Šmagarys talks about the beginning of his career, teacher, and coach Kristian Sohlberg, the new Hyundai i20 N5 car, and other very interesting things
How long have you been behind the wheel?
I have been driving professionally since last year. Well, we’ve had a little bit of a few rally sprints in the past, but I’ve been so into motorsport all my life. Since childhood, racing computer games, slaloms, some circuit races, and other adventures behind the wheel have started. Later came the time when financial opportunities appeared and it was necessary to decide – either drive now or never. After making the right decision, I bought a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX from Jonas Sluckus and immediately started driving in rally sprints. There was a lot of desire, stress, and emotions, the eyes were big, so the first rally went not as planned. With no experience at all, a tiny mistake was enough to end up with a broken rib and a totaled car.
After this incident, chief mechanic and engineer Darius Biesevičius said that there are two ways: to learn everything by yourself and to crash cars for two-three years or to find a teacher. I got a recommendation and a phone number. I called Kristian Sohlberg and said that I want to study. He replied: Ok, come to Finland 🙂
So I came to Finland in January last year and we covered about 500 kilometers in five days. It was immediately said – to crumple up everything you know about driving and throw it away. We will learn everything from scratch. That was the beginning and now I understand that it would be extremely difficult to learn such things without a proper teacher. Everything is very disciplined, both in driving technique, Pacenotes, and psychology. The basis is the Pacenotes, which in my opinion is one of the most important things. Also, psychology, goes from A to Z, including breathing, relaxation, etc.
Tell me how the training and tests are going?
The tests are quite simple. We start early in the morning and do the Reece of the stage where we will be testing. At that point, the coach sits in the back and corrects everything we’re doing wrong in real-time. Later we stop and discuss what and why we need to change. In the beginning, you see everything in one way, but after the lessons, you realize that everything is really much different than you thought before. Pacenotes writing is very important and the main focus is to be able to visualize the road without seeing it yet. It’s really not enough to write down the angle of the corner to go very fast. The WRC school that Kristian has gone through is much more professional and teaches to imagine and visualize it. Not only the angle but also the inclination or other important attributes and details.
Of course, there is work going on with the driving technique as well. At first, I pass the stage by myself with the co-driver, then I ride with the coach a few times, and then the coach himself passes that stage. Video reviews and analysis take place in the evenings. These are the days of training, which last from early morning until late at night. Of course, if there are no excesses, such as running off the track or even crashes, which happened to me during the very first training sessions. It’s a good thing that everything happens in Finland in the wintertime, so the snow and snowbanks forgive mistakes or at least reduce their consequences. Although it is a bit more difficult to drive on snow/ice, you need more precision and the snow sucks in the car very quickly in the event of a mistake, but the specifics are quite similar to the gravel we drive in Lithuania.
This year we covered 450 kilometers and didn’t make a single mistake running off the road. In comparison, last year we off-track maybe 10 times and even rolled. This year, the car returned to Lithuania in perfect shape and we are very happy about it.
Tell us about working with Kristian Sohlberg. What kind of teacher is he?
Kristian is a very interesting person. At the beginning of training, he even screamed at me. However, the first tests went very well and later Kristian himself offered to be his student, and such an opportunity does not happen to everyone. The main reason – it was easy to work with me since I am a fairly new driver and do not have many skills from past. Often already experienced pilots come to learn, but it is much more difficult to correct their bad skills and driving manners than to train new drivers with little experience. Later in the summer, we had tests in Zarasai, together we participated in the Rally Rokiškis, and we continue to cooperate successfully.
What do you work on the most? Driving technique, Pacenotes, psychology?
All learning processes take place at the same time – driving, writing Pacenotes, and psychology. It is very important to drive calmly, to maintain even breathing, and to speed up little by little, not to rush with your eyes wide open, out of breath, turning the wheel like hell in the hope that something good will happen. Only errors follow from the latter.
What can you tell us about your Hyundai i20 N5? Are you already familiar with the car?
I’m not really used to it yet, but since I haven’t had time to fully get used to the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, the adaptation to the Hyundai is going smoothly enough. I have heard that for those who have driven Mitsubishi for a long time, switching to more advanced cars is not easy. Braking alone is radically different between the Mitsubishi Lancer and the Hyundai i20 N5. The Hyundai brakes much better and it is really not easy to set up and understand new braking points. After three days of testing, it seems that I have figured out when to brake, and the stage times reflected that. To be honest, this car was very easy to stick to. The fact that everything there is extremely convenient and works gives a lot. The sequential gearbox alone is a huge thing. It is extremely important not to be distracted by external things while driving, like something that does not work or does not turn on. On the special stage, the slightest irritation can throw you off concentration very quickly and then you start doing mistakes. Everything should be very clear and convenient. As soon as the window heating stops working and the window fogs up – immediately it becomes difficult to concentrate and you start making mistakes. In the videos, it is very clear when you are driving nervously and when you are relaxed. Everything is transferred to the steering wheel. Talking about the car – I don’t think you can understand it in such a short time, but I am very satisfied with it. It drove very well in the tests.
Before Hyundai, you drove a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX. Is it a big change to switch to N5 technology?
The difference is really huge. Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution is much more difficult to control. It does not forgive mistakes and you have to drive with it much more precisely. If you miss a turning point, the car slips off the road very easily, and the Hyundai i20 N5 recovers very quickly and you have time to correct it. Yes, the Mitsubishi can go faster in the straights, but speed is most important in the corners. The Hyundai’s seating position is completely different, resulting in a much better center of gravity, as in the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution you sit in the front, while in the N5 you sit in the middle. Everything is quite different, but for the better. In the N5 car, everything seems much simpler compared to the Mitsubishi. Of course, at the very beginning of the tests, the car had to be adjusted a lot, because it was straight from the factory and did not drive very well. However, the coach and mechanics know what they are doing and adjusted the car to about 80%. As they say – it is always possible to do better, but I am not yet such a specialist to feel all the changes they made.
What is this place where you trained? Have other crews joined you?
Everything took place at the Snow rally rings base in Rovaniemi, the capital of Lapland. This is, in my opinion, the best place in the world for rally training. This is a private place that also houses the Ari Vatanen Academy and the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution School of the German racer. The size of the territory reaches 200 square kilometers, which includes forests, lakes, and about 14 special stages. Stages are very different from Lithuanian ones – technical, with many corners, extremely narrow roads, special terrain, and many jumps – in other words, perfect for training. There are very twisted places where it is very difficult to drive and even write Pacenotes because the distance between corners can be only 5, 10, or 20 meters. From the Pacenotes’ point of view – an ideal place for improvement.
This time there were no other crews, we were alone, apart from people who had come to drive around the frozen lakes with BMW or Mitsubishi cars. Not everyone is admitted to the special stages. There were many rallies around the region this weekend so it was empty here.
How do you feel before the start of the 7Bet Winter Rally Aukštaitija?
I feel good, we will be in a good mood. We’re definitely not going to tear our shirts off, we’re going to drive for fun because we’re still new to rallying. We don’t have goals yet to chase something and match experienced racers, but we’ll see how it turns out. I hope we will ride well, but with reserve and relaxation. There is still a long way to go and I want to have a healthy car before the season.
What are your plans for this season?
The plan is to drive the Lithuanian rally championship. We also have plans and would like to do an asphalt rally somewhere in Portugal or Italy in the summer. We want to try this surface, so this is the dream and challenge of this year 🙂 By the way, we met the Portuguese asphalt Rally2 champion, who invited us to come and race with him. That’s how the idea started 🙂