Russian pilot with historic first win for Bulgaria in WRC2 | DizzyRiders.bg

21 Apr 2024

Nikolay Grjazin brought Bulgaria a historic first victory in the World Rally Championship (WRC) after winning the race in WRC2 at Rally Croatia.
Competing with a Bulgarian license, the driver recorded 11 stage wins during a race in which his main rival was his DG Sport team-mate Ioan Rosell. The Monte Carlo Rally winner tried to attack Gryazin on Friday afternoon, but the naturalized Bulgarian held on to the top spot and eventually won by 38.2 seconds ahead of Rosell.

Text, Evgeni Vakov, Sportal.bg

The WRC2 treble at the end of Rally Croatia was completed by Pepe Lopez, who failed to repeat his drive from Monte Carlo this weekend. The Spaniard also had a spin on Friday that cost him more than a minute and thus he practically lost any chance to fight at the front. However, until the very final he had to be careful with Nicolas Xiamen, who showed a very strong pace on Sunday. However, the Frenchman’s strength was not enough and he finished 19.7 behind Lopez.

Also starting in Rally Croatia were Sami Payari and Gus Greensmith, who had not nominated this race for points in the WRC2 classification. It is for this reason that they were left out of the classification in the category in which they would have otherwise finished third and fourth. In the WRC2 general classification, the leader after the first four rounds of the 2024 season, the leader with 43 points, is Oliver Solberg, who has an identical asset to that of Rosell . Grjazin is three points behind them as all three have already scored points in two races and can nominate a maximum of five more by the end of the season. In contrast, Xiamen, who is fourth with 36 points, has already scored points in three starts, but the Frenchman has finished fourth all three times.

The WRC2 season continues in three weeks’ time with Rally Portugal, which will kick off the long summer series of macadam races. The competition in Portugal is scheduled for May 9-12, and the list of participants for it has not yet been officially published.