Baja Poland 2018 – Round 9, FIA Cross CountryRally World Cup .
• MINI wins Baja Poland 2018 with a superb one-two finish,
• Polish star Jakub ‘Kuba’ Przygonski takes MINI John CooperWorks Rally to first place on home soil.
• Przygonski tightens his grip on the 2018 FIA Cross CountryRally World Cup championship.
• Fellow countryman Krzysztof Holowczyc places another MINI John Cooper Works Rally on thepodium with second place.
Munich. Round nine of the 2018 FIA Cross Country Rally World Cupcouldn’t have been a better result for MINI Motorsport andmotorsport partner X-raid. Both MINI John Cooper Works Rally carscompleted the three day Baja Poland ahead of the competition. Thefinal result was a one-two finish for MINI; and a glorious triumphfor the two Polish drivers racing on home soil amid thousands ofrally fans.
Przygonski and co-driver Tom Colsoul (BEL) fired the first shot inwhat turned out to be a close battle over the weekend by winning theopening Super Special Stage (SSS) on the evening of Friday31st August. Przygonski’s compatriot and five times winnerof Baja Poland, Krzysztof Holowczyc, finished the SSS in fourth. Withthe top ten finishers of this stage being able to select theirstarting position for the next stage, Holowczyc elected to go firstfollowed by Przygonski.
The Saturday (1st September) morning stage saw Holowczyc andco-driver Lukasz Kurzeja (POL) keep ahead of the chasing pack, whilePrzygonski and Colsoul dropped time because of a puncture – a problemthat also affected other competitors racing on the Drawsko Pomorskiemilitary range. However, at the end of the second run in the samelocation, the leading roles had been reversed, due mainly to Holowczycand Kurzeja’s MINI John Cooper Works Rally getting stuck in largewater splash.
Today’s final stages of Baja Poland 2018 saw Przygonski and Colsoultake their MINI John Cooper Works Rally all the way to the finish linein first place, thanks to a determined and controlled drive.Przygonski’s race time was logged as 5hr 27min 4sec. Taking secondplace with only a 3min 34sec time difference was Holowczyc in thesecond MINI JCW Rally.
With today’s win, Przygonski’s first win of Baja Poland, the Polishrally star retains the lead of the 2018 FIA Cross Country Rally WorldCup. There are just two more rounds to play for, from which Przygonskineeds just 19 points to secure the Rally World Cup title.
Jakub ‘Kuba’ Przygonski: “Tom and I are so happy. Itwas a really important race for me because we were racing in my homecountry of Poland and the goal was to be as fast as possible. Our MINIJohn Cooper Works Rally was really good; perfect from the start so Iwas able to push from the beginning. We had one flat tyre but the restof the race was perfect. Tom made a good race – he was ready for thisrace before we started. The result means more points for thechampionship… so I’m really happy.”
