After the successful trip to the first Estonian Rally Championship round in Alūksne last month, Martynas Samsonas together with Ervinas Snitkas and their BMW M3 E36 will tackle the second round, which will take place in the surroundings of the beautiful town of Otepaa. In the first event, which took place on the Latvian stages, the Samsonas Motorsport crew managed to finish 9th overall and win both the 2WD and EMV6 classes. Thus, the Lithuanian crew was awarded the 7th starting position in Otepaa.
Martynas Samsonas had tasted these roads in the summers of 2004 and 2016, and the Otepaa Rally is known for running on roads that are often part of the Rally Estonia, so it is a big challenge for the crews to tackle these stages in winter. The rally starts in the late morning and covers 105 kilometers, divided into three stages to be driven twice. The shortest stage is 13 kilometers long, and the longest is 24 kilometers. And it will be driven in the dark.
The Lithuanian crew will be accompanied in this rally by their good partners MV Sport. They will bring a Hyundai i20 VRT driven by Mikolaj Kempa and Marcin Szeja. Mikolaj is a frequent guest at Estonian rallies and tested the MV Sport-built car last year during the pre-Orlen Lietuva Rally tests. The Hyundai i20 VRT is equipped with double wishbone suspension, Samsonas Motorsport dampers, and a sequential gearbox. The same suspension with Samsonas dampers and a different sequential gearbox is fitted to a famous Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX driven by Latvian rally champion Emils Blūms, who recently won the Sarma Rally.
