Rally Estonia, taking place on 17-19th July, marks the beginning of the second half of FIA European Rally Championship title fight. LOTOS Rally Team crew – Kajetan Kajetanowicz and Jarek Baran – will take part in challenging battle for points on blindingly fast gravel roads in southeastern Estonia. In their first outing in this event Polish duo will drive a Ford Fiesta R5. Just like in previous rounds of FIA ERC, the car of Kajetan will be prepared and run by Polish division of M-Sport, based in Cracow.

This is only sixth edition of Rally Estonia (second as a round of FIA ERC), but this event has already earned much appreciation, confirmed with FIA ERC Rally of The Year Award won in 2014. Demanding roads attracted many crews with great experience in World Rally Championship, but the only driver who managed to defeat Estonian rivals was Mads Ostberg: factory driver of Ford and Citroen. Apart from the Norwegian, the list of rally winners includes also Markko Märtin and Ott Tänak: local drivers well known for their starts in WRC.

The Estonian round of the championship is based in Otepää: so-called winter capital city of the country. Right here, in picturesque surroundings on Lake Pühajärv, the crews commence the fight on 16 special stages with total length of over 200 kilometres. Almost record-breaking, 34,91-kms long stage number 7 and 8 might prove to be the key in the battle for victory.

In the sixth round of FIA ERC Kajetanowicz will fight not only with the experienced FIA ERC frontrunners but also with many Estonian drivers: among others with Raul Jeets, Sander Pärn (both in Fiestas R5) and Siim Plangi, runner-up in Rally Liepāja. Also Juha Salo, rally legend from Finland and seven-time Finnish champion, announced his participation in Rally Estonia.

Kajetan Kajetanowicz: – The first outing in Rally Estonia – faster than legendary Rally Finland – can thrill even the most experienced competitor. Although the whole LOTOS Rally Team works very hard, not everything can be prepared before the rally. Some things can be learnt only in serious competition on special stages. This learning process has to be extremely quick in Estonia because you tackle a huge part of the route, many blind corners and crests in top gear, pedal to the metal. In these conditions the final results depend not only on perfect pace notes or experience from previous editions of this rally, but also on top speed of the cars and tremendous confidence, essential on these stages. I will do my best to extract every single horsepower from our Fiesta R5. Rally Estonia is a challenge which we relish: interesting, unpredictable and a bit crazy – which makes it really fascinating. This round of FIA European Rally Championship will be the most difficult one for us when it comes to scoring and this is why the points secured in Estonia will be extremely valuable for me.