NITIŠS / MĀLNIEKS CRASHES OUT OF RALLY IN FINLAND

MIKKELI, FINLAND
08/02/2020

This weekend rally driver Reinis Nitišs together with co-driver Andris Mālnieks took part in the Finnish Rally Championship round SM Vaakuna Ralli Mikkeli. Unfortunately, the crew had an accident on the third stage of the rally and was unable to continue.

“We started the event carefully, because, despite loads of kilometres of testing, circumstances are very different during an actual rally. There are ruts on the roads that do not exist during RECCE, and the roads here are way more complicated than anything that I have driven before,” states Reinis Nitišs. “We started to adjust to the car and to the roads and getting into the rhythm with an aim to pick up our pace, but on the third stage we had a small mistake in our pacenotes. During RECCE, while driving with the road-legal speed limit, we marked a 40-meter gap between high-speed and mid-speed right corners, allowing enough room to brake. Unfortunately, at the rally speed (around 140 km/h) this gap “literally disappeared” and we had no way of making it through this section, which lead to a crash,” concludes the young rally pilot.

On the first two stages of the rally, the crew managed to finish in mid-field among eighteen drivers with R2 cars, which relates to the crew experience and their goals for this rally.

“Even though we managed to crack the TOP 10 result in class, the best Finnish drivers showed us that we still have lots of work to do, before we can challenge them. For the moment the main thing is to draw conclusions of the mistakes we had and take the experience for the future, because this was not a rally finish we were hoping for. I am glad that we are both OK and already today we will start our preparation for the future rallies – we will double check our pacenotes of this rally and see where we need to improve,” says Nitišs.

“I could feel that with every kilometre we were growing as a crew and on some moments, we were able to drive smoothly and fast. Despite the initial negative feeling, we have to look at this as part of the development process. This gives us motivation and strength to work even harder for our goals,” says co-driver Andris Mālnieks.

Reinis Nitišs participation in rallies is possible thanks to the support by Circle-K, Ginalas, Ošukalns, Citadele, Latvijas Gāze, Pafbet, Vizionette, Rīgas Brīvosta, the city of Jēkabpils, Gefa Latvija, If apdrošināšana, Dynami:t, Rimi, Zebra, DELFI, and RA Events.

SM Vaakuna Mikkeli Ralli official results available HERE.

News and other information about Reinis Nitišs and Andris Mālnieks can be found on his official website at www.reinisnitiss.com, as well as on social media: Instagram /reinisnitiss, Twitter @ReinisNitissRX, Facebook /ReinisNitissOfficial, and YouTube /ReinisNitissOfficial.