The Alūksnė Rally, which opened the Baltic winter rally season, ended last weekend. A crew from our N5 team – Eugenijus Sladkevičius and Marius Kairys with the Škoda Fabia N5+ – took part in the combined stage of the Latvian and Estonian championships. Even before the Alūksnė Rally, the Lithuanian crew had tests in Elektrėnai, where they prepared for the start of the “Rally Alūksne” and “Winter Rally Aukštaitija” competitions. Although car settings worked perfectly on the Beižionys special stage where tests were held, the situation was somewhat different on the extremely narrow and technical roads in northern Latvia. It also didn’t help that the Lithuanians had last competed in this event last fall. All these nuances meant that Eugenijus and Marius were fighting for positions around Top20. On the first day of the rally, in the second special stage, which took place at night, the Lithuanians achieved a much better time – thirteenth. In the last section of the rally, which took place after dark, the Lithuanian team was unfortunately forced to stop.
Next weekend we will see Eugenijus and Marius with other N5 colleagues at the first stage of the Lithuanian Rally Sprint Championship – “Winter Rally Aukštaitija”, which will take place on January 27 in Zarasai.
| Driver | Do-driver | Car | Team | Class | Time | Overall | Class | |||
 | Eugenijus Sladkevičius | | Marius Kairys |  | Škoda Fabia N5+ | Samsonas Motorsport | LRC1 | DNF | – | – |
