FIA European Rally Championship on Danske Gas fuel. 82nd Rajd Polski

Rajd Polski has eighty-two editions behind it, and only Monte Carlo is older. For two decades it meant Mikołajki and gravel. This year it changed its address: the start ceremony on Dworcowa Street in Katowice, a city stage in Strefa Kultury, the Culture Zone, rally headquarters and the service park beside Stadion Śląski in Chorzów, and special stages in the south of Silesia – Jastrzębie-Zdrój, Ochaby, the municipality of Jasienica, Kiczyce, Hażlach, Marklowice Górne – and Przegibek in the Little Beskids, back on the route after twenty-seven years. The whole rally on tarmac, for the first time since 2004.

Three days, fifteen scheduled stages and a record one hundred and forty-eight crews on the entry list. The fourth round of the FIA ERC and, at the same time, a round of the Polish championship. Twenty Rally2 cars – Škoda, Toyota, Hyundai, Lancia, Citroën – the best Polish drivers, and spectators on the hairpins from dawn.

The winners were Teemu Suninen and Antti Haapala – the Finn's first victory in the European Championship, taken on his fifth start in Rajd Polski. Two Polish crews joined them on the podium: Jakub Matulka with Daniel Dymurski, nine and a half seconds behind the winners, and Mikołaj Marczyk with Szymon Gospodarczyk. Kajetan Kajetanowicz was fifth, and the most stage wins – six – went to Matulka. The gaps were counted in seconds, just as the fans like it.

The fuel the works teams ran on was supplied by Danske Gas. The teams ordered it directly from us – in Poland, from a Polish supplier. For a crew, fuel is one variable fewer: the same batch on Friday evening in Katowice and on Sunday's final stage, the same blend that is used in the World Championship.

Rallying is a sport of logistics. A car standing in the service park at dawn must cover several stages by evening and return on time. The fuel arrives before the crews do, in sealed drums, with a document for every batch. Nobody sees it – and that is how it should be.

Silesia showed that Rajd Polski can change its landscape without losing its character. We showed that a Polish fuel supplier can be a partner to works teams on home ground. See you on the next stages.