Italian Baja 2018 – Round 6, FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup.

Media Information

Italian Baja 2018

24 June 2018

Italian Baja 2018 – Round 6, FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup .

• MINI wins Italian Baja for second successive year.
• MINI JOHN Cooper Works Rally crew of Jakub ‘Kuba’ Przygonski and co-driver Tom Colsoul dominate Italian Baja 2018.
• Przygonski wins Italian Baja 2018 to retain lead of 2018 FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup.
• Amos Eugenio and co-driver Filipe Palmeiro successfully complete Italian Baja 2018 in a second MINI racing car.

Munich. If ever there was any pressure on Jakub ‘Kuba’ Przygonski (POL) to retain his lead of the 2018 FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup – and repeat his winning result of the 2017 edition of Italian Baja – the young Polish rally star showed absolutely no signs, while on his way to winning Italian Baja 2018.

Przygonski drove a virtually immaculate race to win Italian Baja 2018 in a MINI John Cooper Works Rally. Of the six Special Stages that made up the 443.49km race distance, Przygonski and co-driver Tom Colsoul (BEL) won five stages and narrowly missed out on making it a straight six by finishing second in the Super Special Stage, missing out on the win by just 0.7sec.

Today’s result (Sunday 24^th June) gave Przygonski maximum race points maintains to increase slightly his overall lead at the head of a close and hard chasing pack in this year’s 2018 FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup. There now remains five more rounds of the Rally World Cup championship. The next round is Baja Spain 2018, 20-22 July 2018.

The second MINI Family crew of Eugenio Amos (ITA) and co-driver Filipe Palmeiro (POR) completed the Italian Baja in 21^st. In only their second race as a partnership in a MINI racing car, this new pairing’s confidence and team spirit is growing with every race.

Jakub ‘Kuba’ Przygonski: “We are so happy. It was a good race for us. We won five stages although we had to fight to the end with second placed car – sometime we could feel their breath on our back. At the end we had to push.

“Today was also good because we gained maximum points, which is really important when fighting for the World Cup. During this race our MINI John Cooper Works Rally was perfect and we had no issues. Tom made a really good job. We didn’t have any mistakes with navigation or cooperation; this is really important when racing with maximum speed and maximum risk. I’d like to say thank you to all of the team for all of their support.”

Italian Baja 2018: MINI race end results