Ukrainian Team, which has Eurolamp WRT name now, raced in Finland four times. And the crew of Valery Gorban occupied place in top-10 of Production category classification of one of the most difficult and speedy race all over the world.
Finnish debut of Ukrainian squad took place in 2011. Then the team had Ascania Racing name and used Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX cars. Two of three team’s cars were on the race finish and both got into top-10. The best was Valery Gorban’s crew which was 7th in PWRC category.
After one year break, in 2013, Valery Gorban had a chance to repeat his previous Finnish result and to finish on 7th place with new co-driver, Vladimir Korsia, and with new car, MINI JCW RRC. But the crew was late on a check point after one of the services because of a problem with Engine Control Unit and it was fined by the stewards of the race. So about 2 minutes fine resulted in the loss of two positions in the final race classification.
In 2014 on Finnish stage of World Rally Championship Valery Gorban and Vladimir Korsia was in top-10 of their category again – they finished on 7th row of WRC2 race classification. But the race was very difficult – the crew was forced to use Rally2 regulation to return to the race and continue their fight.
The first problems happened on Thursday, the first day of the race. First of all, a contorted wheel rim had destroyed the brake system, and the crew lost a lot of time because of that. After this, the radiator was broken in consequence of hit on a stone during one of the jumps, and the crew was forced to end their race day ahead of the schedule. During second day of the race Gorban and Korsia recouped a little, even though they had a few problems like lost of full drive. But the Saturday prepared for the Ukrainian duo the next part of tests including the flat tyres, brake system failure, ECU malfunctions. Ultimately the crew was forced to resort to Rally2 regulation second time. The most offensive was that Valery Gorban and Vladimir Korsia had very good pace when they didn’t have any technical problems: the crew was 5th in their category on seven special stages and two stages they ended at 4th position.