• Rally Poland: Claire Schönborn and her Junior ERC rivals venture into the unknown
• Katowice instead of Mikołajki, Tarmac instead of gravel: Rally Poland in a new guise
• Senses sharpened, please: quick adaptability is key

Discovering Europe – at rally pace. This time’s intensive short trip: through Upper Silesia. Claire Schönborn and her co-driver Michael Wenzel line up for the first time at Rally Poland (24–26 July). In the FIA European Rally Championship (ERC), the ‘personal debut’ tag is usually hers and hers alone. This time, though, the third round of the Junior ERC is unfamiliar territory for most of the competitors. Rally Poland, previously known as a gravel event on the World Rally Championship (WRC) calendar, is being run around Katowice this time – on Tarmac. For Claire Schönborn/Michael Wenzel and their rival crews, that means one thing: a quick read of the road and a high degree of adaptability are key.

“I’m hugely looking forward to Rally Poland. With the new special stages and the switch from gravel to Tarmac, a completely new challenge awaits every team. It means practically everyone is starting from scratch – nobody has a real experience advantage. That’s exactly what makes this rally so special. The decisive factor will be adapting quickly to the new conditions and finding the right feel for the stages right from the word go.”
CLAIRE SCHÖNBORN

Katowice instead of Mikołajki, Tarmac instead of gravel

As the third round of the Junior classification within the FIA European Rally Championship (ERC), Rally Poland arrives with a fundamentally new programme: instead of the Masuria event around Mikołajki, this time the Upper Silesian metropolis of Katowice provides the rally headquarters, with the service park and ceremonial start at the Silesian Stadium (Stadion Śląski) in Chorzów. Run predominantly on Tarmac, it bears no comparison to the old ‘Rajd Polski’. In all, fifteen special stages totalling 187.60 competitive kilometres are on the agenda, opened by a 6-kilometre qualifying stage in Bieruń on Friday morning. Three stages stand out in particular: the spectacular super special stage ‘Katowice’ (2.20 kilometres) as the Friday-evening curtain-raiser on a street circuit right beside the Spodek Arena; the legendary mountain stage ‘Przegibek’ (6.50 kilometres), which returns to the itinerary after twenty-seven years with more than fifty hairpins and switchbacks; and ‘Ochaby’ (11.20 kilometres), which features the notorious rough gravel section on an otherwise sealed surface. The finishing touch on Sunday is the 11.90-kilometre Power Stage ‘Województwo Śląskie’.

Unfamiliar territory for the ERC field

A fresh set of pace notes on a blank page, two recce runs at a strictly enforced speed limit under Polish road traffic regulations, and then hunting for times at rally pace: getting to grips with new rally terrain happens almost in real time, and then instantly on the absolute limit. Only those who tackle this challenge with senses fully sharpened stand any chance of success. Six special stages are run twice, three just once. The experience factor plays an enormous role here – around a week before her twenty-seventh birthday, Claire Schönborn will be contesting only her seventeenth rally across various series, and her third in the ERC.