Ralfs Sirmacis Wins Rally Estonia After Alexey Lukyanuk Faltered

Rally kicked off with the short city stage Tartu city. Right from the beginning Lukyanuk was in control of the rally. On the first leg he won handful of stages and was leading by 20.1 seconds. Sirmacis too kept up the pace in his Skoda R5 machine and was always close behind the Russian. Kajetan Kajetanowicz was in third a long way back 1 min 29.9 seconds behind the leader.

In the second leg Lukyanuk was in a mood to win. He won all three stages in the morning loop and extended his lead 27.9 seconds. He kept up his pace in the afternoon loop as well. But in the penultimate stage he took a jump slightly wrong and landed heavily, which broke his steering and then ended up hitting a tree. This handed over the lead to Sirmacis who was the only driver matching the pace of Russian. Later Sirmacis finished with a flourish by winning last two stages and won the rally by a big margin of 1 min 34.5 seconds. Kajetanowicz finished second in his Fiesta R5. Estonian Rainer Aus finished in an impressive third in his ERC2 spec Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX, second time in a row in two years. Another Estonian Raul Jeets finished fourth driving a Fabia R5. Jarosław Kołtun was in fifth in his Fiesta R5 ahead of his fellow Polish driver Łukasz Habaj. 

Rainer Aus took ERC2 victory as he finished third in overall standings. Estonian driver Miko-Ove Niinemäe won the ERC juniour in his home rally. Driving a Peugeot 208 VTi R2 he won by39.8 seconds. He also finished in seventh in overall standings. Takamoto Katsuta and Hiroki Arai, ERC debutants from Tommi Makinen Racing, crashed and could'nt finish the rally. 

                                    Overall Classification

For more news on happenings in the world of rally, subscribe to us on bottom of the page. Until then, Happy Rallying!