On Thursday, March 9, the first day of Rally Mexico, the participants of third round of World Rally Championship had to overpass nearly 800 kilometers.

Though, all of those hundreds kilometers were wasted on way from Leon, the main city of the rally, to Mexico city and back to Leon. The distance of Thursday special stage was only 3 kilometers.

To have a short visit to the capital of the country – the rally cars passed 1,5-kilometers stage traced at Zokalo Plaza twice – the crews and theirs teams were forced to have a lot of problems before the start of the rally yet. They had very tough schedule of the reconnaissance when they had to recce two-thirds of the race distance during only one day. Moreover they had the shakedown in this tough schedule. And the main thing of cause was the marathon Leon-Mexico-Leon.

But, all of that stuff were worth to pass through them. The parade of the world best rally crews on the main Mexico plaza – at the foot of Mexico City Cathedral and The National Palace in Mexico City under night illumination and camera’s flash and and with the accompaniment of thousands of spectators – it was great spectacular show…

Evidently the next days of the rally will be no less spectacular. The rally organizers did their best for it. According to Valery Gorban, Eurolamp WRT leader, the route of 2017 Rally Mexico was almost completely changed compared to the last year one. The rally road became more difficult.

«If to compare with last year, except one short stage and a few connections we have completely new rally route, completely new configuration of special stages. We can tell the same about surface of the roads. The organizers did their best the rally to have as many bad roads as possible. They added to the route a lot of difficult and narrow sections with surface which will be dug very quickly and there will be a lot of stones. The first impression is that the last year route was easier», — said Valery Gorban.

Moreover Valery Gorban remarked in his review of first days in Mexico that the team has great support from local Ukrainian diaspora: «We know there are a lot of our countrymen in Mexico. And we feel it. We saw a few Ukrainian flags on our way. And it is very pleasant that during the event we will have support not only in Ukraine but here — just on the rally. We will be happy to see our fans along the roads and will make our best to make all of them happy too…»