Samsonas Motorsports Škoda Fabia N5 has already arrived in Portugal, where Martynas Samsonas and his co-driver Ervinas Snitkas will take part in this weekend’s Rali Serras de Fafe, the first round of the Portuguese and Promo Rally Championship. The full program for Martynas consists of 4 rallies in Portugal – Fafe, Algarve, Vieira do Minho and Terras d’Aboboreira. Three of these rallies are part of the main calendar of the Portuguese Rally Championship, so it will be a tough but very interesting competition.
Martynas Samsonas, together with Ervinas Snitkas, has some experience on Portuguese gravel, where they took part in the Rali Vieira do Minho in 2021 and 2022 and won the 2021 rally.
We want to help our customers RMC Motorsport and Domingos Sport to develop the N5 class in Portugal, even if things are going well there without us. As we can see, more and more N5 cars are coming to this country, which shows that the N5 is not a bad project. Lithuania is a perfect example of this with 11 cars last season. If the car is assembled with really high quality, it practically does not wear out, so the running costs are low.
Our goal together with RMC Motorport and Domingos Sport is to show optimal, good speed and reliability of the N5 cars. If we achieve these things, we will be happy 🙂
Martynas Samsonas
Martynas has run two rallies in Portugal in the past – Rali Vieira do Minho a few years ago. At Rali Vieira do Minho 2021, it was a big surprise when Martynas won this rally. People in Portugal did not talk about anything, just Martynas’ victory. One journalist said that we had brought a nuclear bomb – so it was a very famous victory. We knew Martynas was fast, we saw that in Lithuania, but people did not expect Martynas to do so well in Portugal. This rally was also a kind of training rally for the best Portuguese crews with R5/Rally2 cars before the start of their championship, and Martynas showed competitive times with Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX among them. After this rally, people were amazed by the Lithuanian speed.
Ricardo Domingos
The Rali Serras de Fafe features 11 special stages that are often used in WRC and ERC events, including the world-famous Fafe jump. The rally starts on Friday evening around Boticas and ends with a super special stage in the streets of Fafe. On Saturday, from early morning until the evening, the action will take place around Fafe, with a short stop at the service zone.
There will be plenty of competition on the Rali Serras de Fafe, with names such as Kris Meeke, Armindo Araujo, Pedro Almeida, Ricardo Teodosio and Marco Bulacia on the start list. There will also be 4 N5 cars on the grid – Andruzilo Lopes (Škoda Fabia N5), Miguel Carvalho (Hyundai i20 N5), Joao Araujo (Ford Fiesta N5) and Martynas Samsonas (Škoda Fabia N5).
Martynas Samsonas will compete in these events in Portugal:
Rali Serras de Fafe, January 23-24
Rallye Casinos do Algarve, March 15-16
Rali Vieira do Minho, March 29-30
Rali Terras d’Aboboreira, April 26-27