The opening stage of 2015 LOTOS Rally Poland took place this evening, with Super Special Stage 1 and Mikolajki Arena. Championship leader Sebastien Ogier took a narrow victory over home favourite Robert Kubica.
The Volkswagen Motorsport driver set a time in the town centre stage of 1:43.9, which was 0.5 seconds clear of Robert Kubica, who has high hopes for his home rally:
“As usual I want to do well, but it’s more about me driving well. I am not targeting any position. Instead I would like to get the best driving from what we have and see where that gets us.
“When it comes to expectations we have to be realistic. We have a smaller budget and a much smaller team than the factory crews.”
One-tenth behind, in third, is Andreas Mikkelsen, ahead of Martin Prokop and Jari-Matti Latvala.
Despite rolling in shakedown earlier, Citroen‘s Kris Meeke made it to the starting line to attempt SS1, but stalled and so completed the stage in 17th position and 4 seconds off the pace.
The action gets back underway tomorrow morning at 08:00 CEST (07:00 UK) with Gorklo, and ends with a return to Mikolajki Arena.
