On the third day of Rally Portugal Maciej Oleksowicz and Andrzej Obrębowski, the crew of Castrol TRW MOTOINTEGRATOR team earned one position in the SWRC classification. Having as many as 316.69 km of special stages behind them, the Poles are in second place with an advantage of 53.7 s. over their nearest rival crew.
Maciej Oleksowicz:
– After the stage we finished today one really has reasons to be tired. We had to cope with odds. During the first loop the stages were very wet, muddy and extremely slippery. On the second loop we faced a big surprise: after just a couple of hours the same roads dried up, the soil was bone dry and that’s when dust became a problem. Most drivers chose soft tyres and then soon overheated and worn them. All in all, however, we all seemed to have lots of fun competing. Unfortunately, on the second stage of that loop we made a mistake. On a very tight hairpin I hung the car on a verge of road and it was quite long before we managed to get it clear and carry on. Strange enough because there were crowds of spectators all around who watched us and applauded, but nobody came to lend a hand so that’s why it took so long. Now our servicemen are going to repair the damage done during that misfortune. We tore the sill, damaged the bumper and several cowls – not a big deal. Mechanically the car is great so tomorrow we’ll attempt to improve over today’s times in order to maintain the position we’ve got.
Tomorrow the crews will compete on the final 115 km of special stages in the rally. This includes three special stages to be covered twice each (Silves – 21.42 km, Santana da Serra – 31.04 km, Sambro – 5.08 km). The start of the first one at 08:34 AM (Polish time). According to the schedule we shall know the results at 4:30 PM.
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