The legendary Saaremaa rally is a true phenomenon. It seems that the more complicated, the more uncomfortable – the more people want to participate. On the other hand, rally drivers and their teams lack “common sense” when it comes to the peculiarities of this motorsport, its complexity, madness and convenience. Therefore, it is perhaps not surprising that in late autumn almost two hundred crews head to the island, which can only be reached by ferry (or private plane…). Add to that the great probability that the weather will be tragic, the roads will be extremely slippery, part of the action will take place in the dark, etc. Nevertheless, not only the crews themselves, but also thousands of spectators gather to watch the crazy driving (while standing in a mud puddle and trying not to fall in because of the hurricane winds). This is really something unique that you want to repeat over and over again 🙂
And this year, not only the World Rally Champion O. Tanak and all the fastest of the Estonian rally, but also a number of Lithuanians – 9 crews – came to this whole affair. Among them four Lithuanians with N5+ and N5 equipment and Pole M. Kempa with Ford Fiesta N5 of D. Biesevičius. The N5 gang was joined by a representative from Finland with the former car of T. Asunmaa – a Kia Rio N5.
The rally consisted of two days – Friday evening and Saturday. Already on the first kilometers M. Samsonas and E. Snitkas, sitting in a Škoda Fabia N5+, showed the best result among Lithuanians. After working his way up to fifth place on the second SS, Martynas did not let up and, with a few exceptions, mostly recorded top-5 times. Such a pace was enough to leave behind a number of well-known names in the Estonian rally, and at the same time it is Martynas and Ervinas best result in this rally. The fifth place in the overall standings was crowned with another victory – the Lithuanians finished first in the EMV1 class. At the end of the rally there was a tension for the 4th place, but they were still 7 seconds short. After the retirement at the Utena Rally, this was the best finish of the rally season for this team.
As all N5 and N5+ cars were placed in the same EMV1 class, five teams had to fight for the remaining two places on the podium. Two of them – Škoda Fabia N5+ driven by Eugenijus Sladkevičius with Marius Kairys and Linas Vaškys with Laurynas Paškevičius. Other cars are the VW Polo N5 of Nedas Radišauskas with Justas Vičiūnas and the Lithuanian Ford Fiesta N5 with Mikolaj Kempa and Marcin Szeja. In addition, T. Roennemaa with Kia Rio N5. Already on Friday, E. Sladkevičius had to gradually withdraw from the fight for the podium, as his newly tuned car did not behave as the driver would have liked, and so the Lithuanian crew fell to the end of the field. Of the EMV1 class participants, T. Roennemaa had the most experience on this island with his Kia Rio N5, but the rally ended for him in the third special stage.
However, a very entertaining fight broke out between the rest of the trio – M. Kempa was only five seconds behind N. Radišauskas, who was the best on the way. L. Vaškys needed only 3 seconds to reach the pole.
At dawn, Saturday, which was also wet and windy, promised a very entertaining triple batlle with Lithuanian accents from the very beginning – after the fourth SS, Nedas, Mikolaj and Linas were within 6 seconds and lined up one after the other in 19th-21st place. However, a seemingly minor problem with M. Kempa’s car in the fifth special stage had major consequences – the driver’s side windshield wiper, which flew into the landscape of Saaremaa Island in the second turn, slowed down the Polish crew considerably. After the problem was solved by taking the co-driver side windshield wiper, M. Kempa and M. Szeja were left with the task of fighting back as many positions as possible. The problems that had plagued Eugenijus Sladkevičius on Friday continued on Saturday until the car simply stopped on the fifth special stage.
After M. Kempa was eliminated from the battle for the second place on the EMV1 podium, N. Radišauskas and L. Vaškys competed against each other. Nedas was faster in five stages on Saturday and Linas – in four. Nedas’ best overall time was 12th place on Orikuela II while Linas even showed the 10th time on the same SS. However, after crossing the finish line, N. Radišauskas and J. Vičiūnas were faster. They finished 16th overall, 21.7 seconds ahead of L. Vaškys and L. Paškevičius, who finished seventeenth. The positions of Lithuanians would have been higher, but at the end of the rally they were overtaken by the legendary Estonian driver Urmo Aava, who has driven a lot in WRC.
After the problems with the windshield wipers, things went uphill for M. Kempa and M. Szeja as well – they managed to improve from 38th to 23rd place during Saturday.
It looks like the classic rally season is over for our N5 gang. There is a possibility that this year these cars with Lithuanians will appear in a slightly different format. But the season is not over everywhere, there will be news from elsewhere for sure 🙂
Thanks for being together 🙂
| Driver | Co-driver | Car | Team | Class | Time | Overall | Class | |||
 | Martynas Samsonas | | Ervinas Snitkas |  | Škoda Fabia N5+ | Samsonas Motorsport | EMV1 | 1:09:23.60 | 5 | 1 |
| Nedas Radišauskas | | Justas Vičiūnas |  | VW Polo N5 | Samsonas Motorsport | EMV1 | 1:12:36.80 | 16 | 2 |
| Linas Vaškys | | Laurynas Paškevičius | | Škoda Fabia N5+ | ORLEN Lietuva-Mažeikių ASK | EMV1 | 1:12:58.50 | 17 | 3 |
 | Mikolaj Kempa | | Marcin Szeja |  | Ford Fiesta N5 | EMV1 | 1:14:10.80 | 23 | 4 | |
| Eugenijus Sladkevičius | | Marius Kairys | | Škoda Fabia N5+ | Samsonas Motorsport | EMV1 | DNF | – | – |
 | Tomi Rönnemaa | | Tero Rönnemaa |  | Kia Rio N5 | EMV1 | DNF | – | – |
