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The 62nd edition of Rallye du Var constituted the eighth round of France Championship conducted on asphalt. Over 200 crews signed up for this rally, including a representation of Rallytechnology team in their Peugeots 208 R2. Those were Dariusz Poloński with Balbina Gryczyńska, Łukasz Habaj with Daniel Dymurski and Tomasz Gryc with Michał Kuśnierz. Already before the start our crews were aware of the upcoming challenge but the scale of the difficulty of this rally by far outgrew their expectations.
Dariusz Poloński with Balbina Gryczyńska in the co-driver’s seat surely had hopes for a good result. As expected for a class 2WD champion, Dariusz Poloński started the competition with the best finishing time among the Poles. This certainly was not an easy task as the rally started after the down. Unfortunately, Darek and Balbina did not have luck during the second special stage and the duo had to leave the track. Although their car did not look seriously damaged from the outside, it was not possible for them to continue.
Tomasz Gryc and Michał Kuśnierz turned out to be the fastest Poles of the rally. The runner-ups of Polish class 4 could not only polish their rally driving technique but also test themselves as a “racing crew” as they kept chasing and overhauling their rivals who started ahead of them. This was quite a discouraging experience, which brought large time losses but so are the rallies. Clutch defect, happily fixed by our mechanics at the nearest stop, clearly did not help winning the position back. On the other hand, the fantastic tempo of Tomek and Michał deserves a great applause. They were faster with every kilometre, which can be best illustrated with their jump from the 89th position in the general classification to the 32nd one!
Łukasz Habaj, with his co-driver Daniel Dymurski – current European Champion, was extremely impressed by the French rally. For Łukasz this rally was a precious lesson of driving Peugeot 208 R2 in constantly changing weather conditions. Despite his modest experience in such circumstances, he presented a decent tempo. Łukasz and Daniel started the rally with a little adventure on the second special stage, where they went off the track. As a consequence, this Rallytechnology crew dropped in the ranking and had to start the special stages from a distant position. And this was not the end of adventures. Overhauling, unexpected turns of the car and another crew stuck across the track happened also during this rally. Eventually, Łukasz Habaj and Daniel Dymurski can be proud of a good 10th position in R2 class and they also take home a lot of information which surely will be of use in the future.
Robert Gabryszewski, Rallytechnology team manager comments: “It is hard to describe everything that happened during this rally. I think it might even be impossible. The level of difficulty and the copetition were above our most daring expectations. With over 206 crews at the start line and barely 129 at the finish line, one can imagine what was happening here. Therefore I am very satisfied with two of our three crews having finished successfully. And in a great style! Tomek with Michał and Łukasz with Daniel came across many adventures on the way, still finally they found themselves in the top 10 of the R2 class. It is a big success, especially that they are not used to over 30-km long stages. I feel sorry for Darek and Balbina. They showed at the first special stage that they can be our most formidable crew, yet later they just missed a bit of luck. For us Rallye du Var means a load of experience, which surely is going to improve our team. It was a fantastic adventure showing that rallies are an extremely difficult discipline and that they are meant only for the toughest ones.”
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