The first day of Rally Portugal was marked by anticipation of the upcoming 3-days fight. And everybody understood – this fight would be interesting and tough, at least thanks to the impressive number of participants.

On Thursday 78 crews started on the first special stage of the rally, superspecial Lousada. 17 of them were ready to fight in WRC3 category, 25 – in WRC2, and 18 crew – in highest league of the championship. And nobody had any doubt –there were only strong participants in every category! The crew of Eurolamp WRT had no doubt too.

«In current season we already have some gravel mileage, that we got during the events in Mexico and Argentina. But here, in Portugal, there are some different gravel conditions – very specific. The surface of race track is more dusty and more slippery. As for the impressive number of participants, we must say that, on the one hand, the highest level of competition always makes us very happy, but there is other side of the coin. If there is a lot of fast guys it means that we must have the throttle more opened and be ready for all consequences of it», — said Vladimir Korsia, Eurolamp WRT co-driver, after shakedown.

The crews will open the throttles stronger on Friday morning, but on Thursday evening, during spectacular special stage they were rather forced to restrain themselves. The organizers showered the track without sparing water to reduce the amount of dust, to make the fight more interesting and to have more attractive TV and photo pictures. Any mistake could be very costly under such conditions.

However the situation was more comfortable for Valery Gorban and Vladimir Korsia in comparison to other participants. In fact the due of Eurolamp WRT opened the super special stage – they were included to third start pair. At that time the track had not been so wet yet. According to Korsia, the track was only a little bit muddy and slippery. But the crew preferred to overcome it more carefully. They occupied 28th row in the list of results of SSS1.