Hungarian Baja will be a crucially important step of South Racing Central Europe’s preparation for the 2018 Dakar Rally: the next round of the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies and of the Hungarian Championship will mark the return of co-driver David Kripal after suffering a tricky foot injury two months ago. The field is not as big as it was in Spain in term of numbers, but there are many top drivers including Dakar winner Nasser Al-Attiyah or ex-WRC star Mikko Hirvonen.
“Originally, Hungarian Baja was not in our plans, but since this is one of the last opportunities to collect some race kilometres before the Dakar, we decided to participate. For us, this race will be 100 percent about David. He has been cleared for racing by his doctors, and on Tuesday we had a small test to see if he’s ready for the weekend. We made sure that he was able to get in and out of the car on his own, and we also prepared a special support in the car for his foot to make it as comfortable as possible. His strength really impressed me, and whatever happens during the weekend, he is our hero. His health is the most important now, so if we need to stop, we stop”, Tomas Ourednicek said before leaving for Hungary.
“We want to race, it’s important to test together before the Dakar. This will be my first World Cup round, and that is a hard race. For me it will be especially tough because my foot is still quite far from being 100 percent, so the jumps can really be painful, but I’m going to focus on navigation. It will be a big test, but for sure we’ll do our best”, co-driver David Kripal added.
Hungarian Baja will start with a 11 km Superspecial on Friday afternoon, followed by two loops on a 136 km track on Saturday and another two loops on a 103 km track on Sunday, totalling almost 500 kilometres against the clock. The crew Ourednicek – Kripal will run under start number 10.
