Barum Czech Rally Zlín 

Opel dominates 2WD category in Europe

20. 8. 2018 - Jakub Hofbauer

Factory team Opel Motorsport is again participating in the European championship. And it seems that its winning streak continues both in ERC3 and U27 category. Martins Sesks from Latvia is following in the footsteps of previous winners Emil Bergkvist, Marijan Griebel and Chris Ingram.

The 18-year old driver arrived at the German team at the beginning of this season. Despite his age, he has already gathered plenty of experience in his home country, where he is been competing in the national championship since he was fifteen and before that he drove cart cars and buggy. He caught Opel's eye in 2016 in Rally Liepaja, where he finished fourth and the year after that he was only beaten by Ingram, who won there the Junior category. This season he is proving that Opel has chosen the right driver. He finished third in Rally Azores and in Rally Islas Canarias and won Rally Roma di Capitale. Those are very impressive results considering those rallies were on tarmac and he grew up on gravel roads. Sesks's strengths are his stable results making him utterly dominant in the junior category. At this moment, before Barum rally, he has 94 points and his lead is incredible 30 points.

His team colleague Tom Kristensson is a bit unlucky this season. He retired in Rally Azores due to a crash and on Rally Islas Canarias finished fifth and improved his result further by claiming second place in Rally Roma. Currently he holds the fourth place in U27. He got his ticket to Opel team by winning Opel Adam Cup in 2017. Opel Adam Cup opened doors for him to international events, before that he was only racing in Sweden.

Opel cars are not limited to factory drivers for European championship. Private drivers like Roland Stengg from Austria and Sindre Furuseth from Norway are also driving Opel cars. There is a new participant in ERC3/U27 Grégoire Munster whose first race is going to be on Barum Rally.

Opel Adam cars seem to be an ideal option for a lot of drivers. Czech crews with R2 specification for both ERC and Czech championship are Andrej Barčák and Robert Hordossy and for XTG Adam Cup its six crews - competing only on Friday and Saturday on Barum rally. They are David Štefan, Martin Baďura, Michal Kolář, Tomáš Neužil, Adam Lahola and of course Martin Vopařil, who has won all the events of XTG Adam Cup so far and leads this championship.