Keeping in mind that speed of modern WRC car had increased the organizers of Rally Finland so they did all their best to make the rally participants’ pace lower. As a results a lot of retarders have appeared on the rally roads.

“In general, in comparison with the last year event, the roads have not changed. The only difference is there are a lot of retarders that were placed by organizers to make the cars’ max speed lower. But in fact, the rally haven’t became slower. I would call it like some visual decreasing of average speed…” – told Valerii Gorban, Eurolamp WRT driver, after the recce. Only the rally will show how efficient was the organizers’ decision. But the shakedown has already shown that using massive bales of hay on the roads can bring some by-effects.

On the shakedown track one of the retarders has been placed awry. As a result, a few crews destroyed their cars because they couldn’t overpass the manmade moderators properly. Unfortunately, Valerii Gorban and Sergey Larens were among them.

Luckily, the lime-green MINI avoided any critical damage – all key agregats survived. Whatever this situation gave extra botheration for the team’s mechanics. In other hand, the organizers conceded their mistake and extended the shakedown to give all suffered crews opportunity to repair their cars and take part in the training in full. So the team had enough time to return the car to the crew in time.

The duo of Eurolamp WRT had three attempts after returning to the shakedown track. And third of them was the best. As the result Valerii Gorban and Sergey Larens occupied 25th row in the shakedown results list.

At night in Jyväskylä the official Rally Finland open ceremony took place. The rally participants overcame 2,3-kilometers spectacular super special stage. The Eurolamp WRT crew shown 13th result at this event.

During Friday the crews will have to pass 12 special stages. The total rally distance of the day is nearly 150 kilometers. So the main problems for the Rally Finland participants are still up ahead.