The Lithuanian Rally Championship season is drawing to a close. As has been the case for many years, the penultimate round of the championship at the beginning of September is the Elektrėnai Rally, which is characterised by its format, roads and terrain. The race still has the format of a one-day race, in which the participants have to master four gravel stages, each of which is driven through twice. The highlight of the rally is a short special stage through the streets of Elektrėnai. The rally is neither short nor long – just over 100 kilometres of special stages, and the total route will be almost 280 kilometres long. It is nice that the competition also includes long special stages, where the skills of the crews are particularly evident.
This time, for various reasons, we will have a slightly more modest number of N5 participants. We are all very much looking forward to the debut of the Ford Puma N5, but we still have to be patient. The car is in Lithuania, but there is still some work to be done before it can appear on the special stages. It seems that we won’t see Rokas Markovičius either. His Hyundai i20 N5 rolled just a week ago on the fifth event of the Rally Sprint in Plungė.
Deividas Gezevičius with Ford Fiesta N5 and Paulius Beniušis with Citroen C3 N5 are fighting for the top positions in the AWD annual overall standings. Both crews have used up the ”one life” granted to them by the N-1 rule and must successfully complete the two remaining events. Deividas Gezevičius is currently in the best position – with 62 points, he is in fourth place in the AWD overall standings and 21 points behind Giedrius Notkus in second place. Deividas is also two points off first place in the LARČ1 classification, which is led by Eugenijus Sladkevičius in the Škoda Fabia N5+, who has completed all the events. So anything can still happen here, especially as this rally is the home-rally of Eugenijus Sladkevičius. Paulius Beniušis, who is in sixth place in the AWD standings, is surrounded by a number of very fast rivals at a short distance from him, so the driver from Kaunas can either improve or worsen his position. On the other hand, the Citroen C3 N5 crew is leading the LARČ5 class and has a 25-point advantage.
The other two crews are newcomers to this season’s N5 squad. Audronis Gulbinas is getting more and more used to the VW Polo N5 and at the same time is able to further consolidate his position in second place in the LARČ5 class. As we will not see Aurimas Eidžiūnas in Elektrėnai, Justinas Brokorius, driving a Ford Fiesta N5, could move up to third place after this rally.
| Nr. | Driver | Co-driver | Car | Team | Class | |||
| 5. |  | Deividas Gezevičius | | Evaldas Kvederis |  | Ford Fiesta N5 | ABEPA ST-SPORT | LARČ1 |
| 9. | | Paulius Beniušis | | Kristupas Adinavičius |  | Citroen C3 N5 | ABEPA ST-SPORT | LARČ5 |
| 14. | | Eugenijus Sladkevičius | | Marius Kairys |  | Škoda Fabia N5+ | Elektrėnų ASK | LARČ1 |
| 23. | | Justinas Brokorius | | Ramūnas Paškevičius | | Ford Fiesta N5 | Skuba Team De Rooy FPT | LARČ5 |
| 36. | | Audronis Gulbinas | | Vytis Paliukomis |  | VW Polo N5 | GSR MOTOSPORT | LARČ5 |