Eurolamp World Rally Team will start its World Rally Championship season with Rally Sweden, which will take place from February 9 to February 12.
When WRC participants were fighting at special stages of Rally Monte Carlo and were summarizing the first results of the championship, Ukrainian squad had its preparations for the first racing start in new season, including a lot of trainings. After Christmas training in Rovaniemi the team visited Snow Rally Rings one more time on last weekend of January. Before departure to Sweden another training took place in Estonia.
So the crew and engineering and mechanics staffs did all their best to have highest level of confidence in their readiness for Swedish stage. But there was one thing that made the crew worry before Rally Sweden – it was the weather. And the driver and co-driver told about it when described their expectations – both positive and negative – of upcoming race.
«First of all positive expectations are associated with a foretaste of snow. Snow race is big rarity for World Rally Championship and especially for our team. We like snow very much. And we have worked hard and put a lot of effort to have the car and the crew ready for the race and to have ability to take maximum pleasure from the event», — told Valery Gorban, Eurolamp WRT driver.
«And if to tell about possible negative side of the race, the main concern is the weather which can completely spoil the race. To understand what I talk about, it is enough to remember last year Rally Sweden when the race was on edge to be canceled because of huge thaw. On other hand, it`s worth to note that we have the new crew. We are sure that it will not be a source of problems, but we still need to work a lot at coherence of our duo… »
Sergey Larens, Eurolamp WRT co-driver, presented very similar to his driver’s opinion: «Surely positive expectation is that so high level races are always very exciting and interesting matters. I may say that it is like a challenge especially for me. Therefore it will be my first race for Eurolamp WRT, and it is no less exciting and enjoyable.
What I may say about our worries is that our concerns are provoked by unstable weather and possible lack of snow first of all. Moreover Valery is new and difficult driver for me. A lot of things – including the car and speed – have changed after my last race with Valery. So we need some time to learn all nuances and features of driver’s view of race road…
But I hope we will escape any technical issues and will show good speed!»
*) För och nackdelar = Pros and Cons