On the last weekend of March, the northwest of Spain welcomed the five-member team from Lithuania not with dust and heat, but with rain, so the mechanics had extra work to prepare the tires for the adventures on Friday and Saturday. In Spain, everything works a little differently than here in Lithuania, but the new conditions and different procedures create a lot of new nerves cells, and that is an invaluable experience. Martynas Samsonas, Rokas Steponavičius, Aurimas Eidžiūnas, Linas Vaškys and Vilmantas Padegimas came to the vicinity of Ordes to gain new experience, test new cars on gravel and develop their sporting form ahead of the upcoming Lithuanian Rally Championship.
The Rally da Auga was a one-day event that took place on Saturday, but even before that there was plenty of action. If on Thursday the participants only had to complete technical and administrative commissions, Friday was much more stressful. Already in the early morning, the participants set out to reece four special stages. This procedure did not take so long, because the stages could be passed only once and not twice, as it is usual in Lithuania. Later, the participants had the opportunity to complete the shakedown and the fastest ones, among which there were all 5 Lithuanian teams, competed in the qualification stage. There Martynas Samsonas and Justas Vičiūnas, driving a Nissan Micra N5 borrowed from the Spaniards, shone especially. In the evening, a tribute was paid to the spectators – a demonstration stage was held in the town of Ordes, where the participants drove only for the sake of the spectators, as the time was not measured.
In the early hours of Saturday morning, racers took off for the stages, of which there were eight in all. Thes stages were mostly between 11 and 15 kilometers long, and the roads were extremely technical. Complicating matters were the torrential rains before the rally, which made the gravel surface extremely slippery. Even before the start of the rally, a considerable number of participants had major or minor incidents on the shakedown or qualifying stages.
The start of the rally was disastrous for the Lithuanians. Due to problems with intercom equipment, Martynas Samsonas drove the first two stages without hearing what his co-driver Justas Vičiūnas was saying, so he had to drive only according to what he could see. It must be admitted that the driving result by eye was not so bad, and if the problems are fixed, the Nissan Micra N5 crew could hope for an improvement in the results table. Rokas Steponavičius and Dovydas Ketvirtis drove the first special stage very well, but in the second stage, in a right turn, their Ford Fiesta N5 slid a bit wide and hit the stump of the front cab. It spun the rolling Lithuanian car to the other side of the road. While the crew and the gathered spectators were thinking how to pull the car off the road, another Lithuanian duo – Aurimas Eidžiūnas and Justas Barysas – met exactly the same fate. An identical car also rolled over and landed next to the car of Rokas Steponavičius. Unfortunately for the two Lithuanian Ford Fiesta N5s, this was an extremely early and painful finish.
Later, the situation stabilized. Martynas Samson managed to partially fix the malfunctions of the communication equipment, and although he could not drive 100%, he already showed a really strong pace and chased his rivals. This process was somewhat marred by the cancelation of the fifth stage for safety reasons. Linas Vaškys and Vilmantas Padegimas were the only ones who rode without major exaggerations. But that changed in the sixth stage. In it, the engine belt on Vilmantas Padigimas’ Renault Clio N5 broke and the Lithuanian car became a kind of smoke machine, forcing the crew to stop on the stage. After receiving help, Vilmantas and co-driver Edvardas Gurevičius still reached the finish of the stage, but it took them almost an hour. This caused a critical delay at the time control, forcing the crew to lay down their arms before reaching the rally finish line. Nevertheless, two Lithuanian crews managed to reach the finish – Martynas Samsonas managed to get at least some grip on his problems from 15th place overall and even climbed to seventh place. And had it not been for the problems at the beginning of the rally, we probably would have seen the Lithuanian tandem among the top five. The extremely stable duo of Linas Vaškys and Laurynas Paškevičius finished fourteenth in the Škoda Fabia N5. The Lithuanians also took the first two places in the “N5” classification, in which two other Spanish crews competed in addition to five Lithuanians.
This was the first stage of the Spanish gravel cup with Lithuanian impact. It was won by the Spaniard José Antonio Suárez with the new Škoda Fabia RS Rally2. The Lithuanians’ biggest trip to Spain was a double one. Although three crews did not finish, two of which still have a lot of work to do to get their cars ready for the Lithuanian rally season, the seventh place of Martynas Samsons and the extremely stable finish of Linas Vaškys give reason for optimism. Above all, all Lithuanian teams bring very important information and experience from Spain, which grows much faster when participating in competitions abroad.
| Driver | Co-Driver | Car | Team | Class | Time | Overall | Class | |||
 | Martynas Samsonas | | Justas Vičiūnas |  | Nissan Micra N5 | N5 LTU | 1 | 1:06:44.8 | 7 | 6 |
| Linas Vaškys | | Laurynas Paškevičius |  | Škoda Fabia N5 | N5 LTU | 1 | 1:08:34.5 | 14 | 9 |
| Vilmantas Padegimas | | Edvardas Gurevičius |  | Renault Clio N5 | N5 LTU | 1 | – | – | – |
| Aurimas Eidžiūnas | | Justas Barysas |  | Ford Fiesta N5 | N5 LTU | 1 | – | – | – |
| Rokas Steponavičius | | Dovydas Ketvirtis | | Ford Fiesta N5 | N5 LTU | 1 | – | – | – |