Once again, three Lithuanian crews have embarked on a 1,500-kilometer journey towards the polar ice cap, where the famous town of Rovaniemi in Finland lies amidst numerous frozen forests and lakes. All three crews are members of the N5 community, but only two N5 cars will be competing. As Martynas Samsonas prepares his Škoda Fabia N5 for the season opener in Portugal, the Lithuanian will start from pole position in a BMW E46. Linas Vaškys continues last year’s journey with Laurynas Paškevičius and the Škoda Fabia N5+, and they will be joined by Tomas Šmagarys, for whom Kristian Sohlberg, well-known in the World Rally Community, will read the pacenotes. It will be the 2024 season opener for Linas and Tomas.
Linas Vaškys and Laurynas Paškevičius return to faraway Finland to settle accounts. Last year, they made their debut at this rally, which ended with them dropping out before the final stage in 34th place. This year should be easier for the crew from Vilnius, as the Lithuanians covered almost the entire distance of this rally in 2023. They also have a full LARČ season behind them with other additional competitions in the Škoda Fabia N5+. Thirdly, the Arctic Lapland Rally will be shorter this year and will have more repeated special stages.
For Tomas Šmagarys, this will be his debut at the Arctic Lapland Rally. However, Tomas should not feel too unfamiliar with the Finnish taiga. For the third year in a row, he spends part of the winter on the “Snow Rally Rings” complex, where he covers countless kilometers on very similar roads. One year he drove the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, the last two years the Hyundai i20 N5. In all cases, he was supported by the famous coach Kristian Sohlberg. For the latter, a trip to the Arctic will be like any other trip. Kristian has already taken part in this rally several times as a driver and finished second overall. Tomas and Kristian have already been working in Finland for several weeks, so it will be extremely interesting to see how the Lithuanian and Finnish crews perform in this competition.
The “Arctic Lapland Rally” is a challenging and endurance rally, covering 200 kilometers of special stages in two days and about 550 kilometers of liaison. Normally most sections are 20 to 33 kilometers long, and more than half are driven in complete darkness, but this year there are also some shorter stages from 1 to 7 kilometers. The reality of the difficult special stages is made even more difficult by huge snow banks, very specific terrain, sometimes very fast, sometimes very technical and narrow road sections. When it comes to the Arctic, the inevitable topic is temperature. It has been unusually high in recent years. Last year it was around freezing, and this year it will be around 4-8 degrees cold, which is quite a lot compared to the usual -20 – -30.
The action starts tomorrow morning – 11:43 am. Tomorrow, 3 long and two short SS and 75 km of stages await the participants. Saturday will be much more intense here – 7 special stages covering 124 kilometers.
| Nr. | Driver | Co-Driver | Car | Team | Class | |||
| 42. |  | Tomas Šmagarys |  | Kristian Sohlberg |  | Hyundai i20 N5 | Autoralis ASK | SM5 |
| 98. | | Linas Vaškys | | Laurynas Paškevičius |  | Škoda Fabia N5+ | ORLEN Lietuva-Mažeikių ASK | 9 |