The Thursday’s race part of Rally Argentina included only one  1,5-kilometers evening super special stage in Cordoba city. But the crew of Eurolamp WRT overcame nearly 40 kilometers during the day.

Valery Gorban and Vladimir Korsia had an active working program during the morning shakedown. The Ukrainian duo passed the training stage six times – more than any one of other participants. As a result the crew could take their race pace more effectively, found true car setups, and understood more exactly the race surface of the roads of the next three race days.

«The situation during shakedown was very representative. The participants dug up the race track very quickly, and after three shakedown attempts we was forced to up car’s suspension for 20 mm, which is very much as for a rally car», – told Vladimir Korsia, Eurolamp WRT co-driver, on Thursday evening.

«The race will be very rough. There are a lot of fords on the race distance, and some of them are very deep. But the main problem of the race will be stones. There are a lot of stones in the ground, and, as the race track is very soft, the rocks will appear up on surface very easily. And Sunday section of the race will be the most serious test for the crews. Final stages are very rocky, narrow and rough. In such conditions ultimate  attention and concentration may play the key role…»

It is noteworthy that the crew checked their attention and concentration during the first special stage. As Vladimir Korsia said, the crew couldn’t pass the stage clearly: «It wasn’t very easy stage, first of all, because of hard navigation in very intricate configuration of the stage. We were forced to brake early and more intensively. But in one of the turns we made a mistake… But we remember that the main race is yet to come… »

Considering the Argentine experience of 2012 and the finish on the Production podium, as well as team’s success on the previous stage, in Mexico, the early finish on Rally Argentina wasn’t the result that Eurolamp WRT team and its fans were waiting for.

The Friday morning special stages of the race were not easy for Valery Gorban and Vladimir Korsia. The crew couldn’t maintain high pace in the race and made a lot of mistakes, but after every passed kilometer the number of errors was decreasing and the pace was increasing. Both the crew and the whole team were determined to fight to the finish. So the need to finish the race prematurely became a terrible disappointment…

«The route of the race was quite rough. And it was very hard test for the car. There were a lot of holes and stones, so the car’s suspension worked in extreme conditions  and there were a lot of hits on the carter protection. And although we couldn’t remember any strong hit, but the fact is the fact. We found a big crack in engine’s body which was obviously the result of one of such hits when the carter protection was helpless», – told Valery Gorban.

«It was impossible to eliminate the crack. And if we had continued the race with damaged engine it would have had the very bad consequences. We could lose both the engine and the car in case if the escaping oil had fallen on the hot parts of the collector and had caught fire. So we made a difficult decision – to abandon the fight and start preparations for the next start!»

The next start of Eurolamp WRT will be in a month – May 19-22 – at Rally Portugal.