Kuzaj wins Rally Poland

Polish driver Leszek Kuzaj won his country's premier rally for the second time at the weekend. With the overnight leader Michal Solowow restarting first car on the road of the gravel rally today, Kuzaj had high hopes of overhauling Solowow but on the first stage of the day (34km) Solowow beat Kuzaj by 14 seconds and his overall lead was extended to 20.9 seconds.

Then it all went wrong. On stage 8 Solowow had two punctures and dropped back behind both Kuzaj and the Swedish driver Oscar Svedlund into third place where he remained for the rest of the event. Staying in fourth place all day was Giandomenico Basso (Fiat Punto Abarth 2000) who thereby pulled clear in the FIA European Championship. Dropping to tenth at the finish, but 83 seconds ahead in the two-wheel drive category, was Kris Meeke in the budget level Citroen C2 R2, who finished ahead of the Super 1600 cars of Frycz and Kosiuszko.

Leszek Kuzaj (1st place): "Victory tastes wonderful. I drove a little too slowly on the first Sunday stage, and couldn't keep pace with Michal Solowow. But then he made a mistake that I tried to take advantage of. To be honest, I was really impressed by the pace Michal set."

Run in beautiful weather in North Poland, this FIA World Championship Candidate Rally event was organised without apparent glitch. Concentration on the structure of the future world championship is expected by the FIA authorities in the next few days, ahead of the World Rally Championship Commission meeting on 14 June. At this meeting, proposed events will be nominated for the January-May 2007 world championship half-season.

About Rally Poland..

The second oldest rally in the world wants to regain its position in the sport's highest category, a status which it held on one occasion (in 1973), the only time any event in the eastern side of Europe has been in the world rally calendar. With the impending World Rally Championship Commission policy meeting on 14th June, three days after the finish, the 63rd running of Rajd Polski (Rally Poland) will be one of the most significant events in the long history of the series. Already a unique event, being the only gravel surfaced rally in the FIA's regional European Championship, Rajd Polski has manoeuvred itself this year to impress the FIA officials in its additional standing as the sixth (and final) world championship candidate rally.

Poland stands proud in its claim for world status. The stages have been moved closer to the headquarter town of Mikolajki in the Mazurian lakes region north of Warsaw, and there is a new young team headed by former champion co-driver Grzegorz Gac. The country is one of Europe's leading car markets, Michelin (though not specifically supporting the event this year) is building a major new tyre factory locally, the country has a support of considerable volumes of experienced rally fans, and this is a most experienced rally region of the country where champions Marian Bublewicz and Krzysztof Holowczyc lived and proved themselves. The Mazurian region is not far from popular central rally areas in the Baltic countries, and itself is a popular tourist region with considerable infrastructure. The event has the support and encouragement of Jacek Bartos, once the team manager of Poland's FSO world championship rally team, now the FIA's Safety Delegate and vice-president to the country's sporting federation.

The rally begins with a ceremonial start on Friday evening, with six stages on both Saturday and Sunday. The 76 competitors that are on the entry list include the ECR regular drivers Giadomenico Basso on his first gravel event in a Fiat Punto Abarth, Oscar Svedlund from Sweden and Dimitar Iliev from Bulgaria. There is a promotional entry for Citroen in a C2 R2 car. This is a prototype for customer use under the FIA's future Group R category, to be driven by Kris Meeke. As things stand, Poland hope their event will not only be the best of the candidate rallies but also the biggest, ahead of Portugal who had 71 starters and Norway who had 69.