Baja Poland 2018 – Round 9, FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup.

28 August 2018

Baja Poland 2018 – Round 9, FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup .

• Two MINI John Cooper Works Rally to compete at Baja Poland, 31^st August-2^nd September 2018.
• Polish cross-country rally stars Jakub ‘Kuba’ Przygonski and Krzysztof Holowczyc line up on home soil in MINI John Cooper works Rally cars.
• MINI driver Przygonski currently leads the 2018 FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup championship.
• Polish ace Holowczyc looks to add another Baja Poland title to his five previous victories.

Munich. Round nine of the 2018 FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup is a pivotal race for the top-three runners of this international series. With only three rounds left to play out, MINI’s Jakub “Kuba” Przygonski (POL) currently leads the Cross Country Rally World Cup with 258 points to his name – only 57 points ahead of his nearest rival (201 points), and 74 over the third placed competitor (184).

The maximum available points up to the end of the final round (Baja Portalegre 500, 25-27 October 2018) of the Rally World Cup are 120. This means that Przygonski and co-driver Tom Colsoul (BEL) will be under even more pressure from their nearest rivals.

However, the MINI John Cooper Works Rally car is renowned for being an ultra-reliable rally car and, at least for Baja Poland, the Polish star has the additional edge of driving on home ground, where he finished second at last year’s event. So, maybe there is more pressure for Przygonski’s rivals as they first have to play catch up against a MINI crew that is in form and driving the leading car prepared by MINI Motorsport’s motorsport partner X-raid.

Friday 31^st August will see competitors take advantage of the shakedown tests to fine tune their cars ahead of the evening’s Super Special Stage of just over seven kilometres, which will also determine starting positions for Stage 2 on Saturday (1^st September). The majority of the action will again involve the military range in Drawsko Pomorskie (approx 220km). By the time Baja Poland has finished on Sunday (2^nd September) the competitors will have driven 736.38 km, of which 505.08 km are timed special stages.

Also to line up at the 2018 Baja Poland for the MINI Family is former international long-distance rally specialist Krzysztof Holowczyc (POL), who now only competes at his favoured home race, Baja Poland, because of what racing on home soil means to him. After winning Baja Poland a previous five times, Holowczyc will give it his all in another MINI John Cooper Works Rally to secure win number six and give his league of fans another reason to celebrate. Co-driver for Holowczyc is once again fellow countryman Lukasz Kurzeja.

Jakub ‘Kuba’ Przygonski: “Baja Poland is coming. Tom and I are prepared and happy with the work we have done so far. After the Hungarian Baja, where we finished second, we really look forward to Baja Poland because it is the one race here in Poland where we can show the Dakar car. There will be a lot of fans from Poland and we will try to push to be on top of the podium.

“The terrain for Baja Poland is marked by bulldozer so we can go fast. There are sandy conditions in the forest, which makes it nice to drive and it feels like you are going at 200 kilometres per hour through the trees!

“We are leading in the World Cup so this race is really important for us to keep that leading place. Of course, we will be fighting hard to achieve this.”

For more information about Baja Poland 2018, please visit the host’s event home page here.

FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup 2018 calendar