Despite a puncture, a broken damper, a replacement brake pipe and a troublesome clutch, reigning champion Alexey Lukyanuk leads the European Rally Championship field after day one of 76th Rally Poland with Jari Huttunen in second place.
Lukyanuk set an unbeatable pace for most of the day but was he occasionally held back by minor issues. A leaking damper luckily only cost him a few seconds on the morning loop-ending Mikołajki Arena superspecial, and he still won the second pass of Paprotki despite a front-right puncture.
That puncture also necessitated fitting a new brake pipe, a precaution against further damage, while the Russian also managed a clutch issue for the rest of the afternoon loop.
“It was a lot of drama today. The change of the balance of the car, the mistake in the fifth stage, in the end a broken brake line, clutch, damper, a lot of issues but somehow we survived and got through,” summarised Lukyanuk.
Behind him, ERC3 Junior graduate Huttunen, driving a Hyundai Motorsport N i20 R5 for the second time in as many years in Poland, holds second overall, focusing on securing a podium rather than risking it all to challenge Lukyanuk.
Huttunen has 12.8s in hand over ERC1 Junior leader Filip Mareš, who used the road position he earned by winning the Qualifying Stage to good effect by scoring seven top three stage times. ACCR Czech Rally Team’s young talent completes the overall podium in addition to his ERC1 Junior lead.
Polish duo Miko Marczyk (ŠKODA Polska Motorsport) and Łukasz Habaj (Sports Racing Technologies) are locked in a battle over fourth position, with Marczyk ahead of current ERC championship leader Habaj by a slim two seconds.
Their two-way battle was originally a three-way fight involving Team STARD’s Hiroki Arai, with Marczyk and Arai also duelling over second in ERC1 Junior. But a right-rear puncture on Paprotki 2 cost the Japanese more than 10s, dropping him to sixth overall and 18s behind Marczyk.
Arai fell behind then overtook seventh-placed Aron Domżała (TGS Worldwide) after his puncture, although he also benefited from trouble striking Chris Ingram (Toksport WRT).
A power steering fault developed on the ERC1 Junior points leader’s car during Stare Juchy 2. Ingram lost only 10s initially but the problem got worse on Olecko 2, having already started eight minutes late due to time taken for repairs between SS7 and SS8. He then lost nearly another two minutes after the power steering failed again, wrestling his car to the finish line with Lukyanuk right behind him.
That drama dropped Ingram to P15, nearly three minutes away from the top 10, although worse problems befell others on the same Olecko test. Marcin Słobodzian rolled his Rallytechnology Ford Fiesta R5 and retired, while Paulo Nobre took a trip into a ditch, damaging his Fabia R5 to the point local police wouldn’t allow it to take to the road section afterwards for safety reasons.
Mattias Adielsson moved up to eighth overall and fourth in ERC1 Junior after Ingram’s initial troubles, despite a missed pacenote that sent him into one of the many corn fields surrounding the stages. Ingram’s strife also promoted two of the Baumschlager Rallye & Racing-run cars into the top 10: Marijan Griebel in a Fabia was recovering from a slow start in the morning and is now up to ninth, while the MOL Racing Team Volkswagen Polo GTI R5 of Norbert Herczig now completes the top 10.
Herczig though will need to keep one eye on the driver behind him, Tomasz Kasperczyk (Tiger Energy Drink Rally Team), who is only 10.7s adrift. He fell behind both Griebel and Herczig on Stare Juchy 2 for an unusual reason: a mosquito entered the cockpit and distracted him, at one point landing on his glasses, costing him a precious few seconds to the BRR-run pair.
Elsewhere, Juan Carlos Alonso leads ERC2, Ken Torn is in front in ERC3 and the Pirelli-supported ERC3 Junior category, while Andrea Nucita heads the Abarth Rally Cup classification.
