Teemu Suninen heads into Sunday’s deciding leg of the 82nd Rally Poland with an 8.9-second advantage over the field, but three closely matched rivals are ready to pounce if the Finn makes a single mistake on the seven remaining stages.
At the close of Saturday’s opening leg, Suninen held an 8.4-second cushion over second-placed Andrea Mabellini, with Jakub Matulka just 0.5 seconds further back. Defending European champion Miko Marczyk completed the top four only 10.7 seconds from the lead in his similar Michelin-equipped Škoda Fabia Rally2.
“We had a good pace in the morning but I’m trying to control the pace because this rally is tricky in places, it’s not easy,” Suninen said. “We need to be humble, there are a lot of grip changes.”
How the day unfolded
Pirelli-supplied Suninen began Saturday 2.7 seconds behind overnight leader Mabellini. Matulka snatched first place from the Italian on SS2 before Suninen outgunned his fellow Škoda driver on SS4 to move 3.6 seconds clear.
The Racing Factory driver extended his advantage to 7.3 seconds by winning SS5, and despite losing out to Matulka on SS6 and Lancia-powered Mabellini on SS7, carried an 8.4-second lead into the day-closing Superauto.pl Silesian Stadium super special.
Matulka struck back with the fastest time on SS8, beating Marczyk by 0.1 seconds and taking half a second out of both Mabellini and Suninen. Suninen’s lead remained unchanged, but Matulka closed to within 0.5 seconds of Mabellini as Marczyk reduced his deficit to the leader by four tenths.
Kajetanowicz makes his presence felt
On his first ERC appearance since October 2017, three-time European champion Kajetan Kajetanowicz holds fifth overall after moving ahead of Polish championship leader Jarosław Szeja on SS7.
Szeja and Marco Bulacia completed Saturday tied on time, 33.9 seconds behind Suninen, with Szeja classified sixth. Simone Tempestini sits eighth, only 1.2 seconds behind the pair, after being slowed by a rear spoiler issue and vibration.
British champion William Creighton had been fifth after five stages but an overshoot on SS6 left him 13.8 seconds off the stage-winning pace and dropped him to ninth overall. Polish teenager Adrian Rzeźnik completed the top ten ahead of Erik Cais, Gábor Német, Hankook-supplied Isak Reiersen, Philip Allen, and Adam Sroka.
Tristan Charpentier had been 12th with two stages remaining, but a damaged front-right tyre on SS7 dropped him outside the points-paying positions, ending the leg in 16th.
Safety concerns overshadow the competition
Stages two and three were interrupted and not restarted following separate accidents involving Marcel Neulinger and Jürgen Heigl on SS2, and Dominik Stříteský and Ondřej Kračja on SS3. All four were taken to local hospitals for ongoing medical care, having avoided serious injury.
What awaits on Sunday
Sunday’s deciding leg consists of seven stages covering 89.40 kilometres. With no midday service halt, there will be little opportunity to recover from any setbacks when the fight for ERC glory in Poland resumes with the legendary 6.50km Przegibek stage from 08:22 local time.
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