The Polish champion Łukasz Habaj was caught out by the challenging Rally Rzeszow stages on just the second corner of the first proper stage on the new FIA European Rally Championship event.
Habaj went off the road in his Rallytechnology Ford Fiesta R5, and the reigning ERC champion Kajetan Kajetanowicz found his path blocked when he tried to come past. While Habaj lost over two minutes, Kajetanowicz dropped 13.2 seconds to Bryan Bouffier, handing the Frenchman the lead.
“It was at the second corner,” said Habaj. “I have hard tyres, the corner was quite slippery and I didn’t take that into consideration. The back of the car slid and I couldn’t handle it. We went into a ditch and lost two minutes.”Grzegorz Grzyb, a two-time winner of the event, was second quickest and takes second overall, now 6.5s behind Bouffier.ERC2 points leader Wojciech Chuchała was third fastest in the Konieczkowa stage and takes fourth overall behind Kajetanowicz. Filip Nivette is fifth in front of Dávid Botka, Raul Jeets, Tomasz Kasperczyk, Jakub Brzeziński and Jarosław Kołtun. Regular ERC Junior competitor Nikolay Gryazin was 4.9s quicker than Tomasz Gryc to leap ahead of the Pole at the top of the two-wheel drive standings.
After SS2: Habaj creates early ERC drama
