After two days, the leader of Wysoka Grzęda Baja Poland is Stephane Peterhansel, who is driving with the new pilot Edouard Boulanger in Mini All4Racing. The trio of favorites, and also the three fastest drivers after two special stages - Krzysztof Hołowczyc, Nasser Al-Attiyah and Kuba Przygoński, lost the chances of winning the most important motorsport event in 2020 in Poland.

The military training ground in Drawsko Pomorskie turned out to be an incredible challenge on Saturday. The downpour that passed over the military base in the morning, and then the rain every now and then changed the route from sandy to muddy. Driving technique was crucial, as well as skilfully driving through slippery turns and avoiding unnecessary risk. 172.31 km special stage had to be covered twice.

The cars were put to the toughest test. All drivers in Hilux had a problem with the steaming windshield. A flooded engine in the Ford Raptor RS Cross Country took the chance of a more than decent result from Martin Prokop and Viktor Chytka. Technical problems also affected the biggest favorites.

Clogged filters and the threat of a serious engine failure forced the Nasser Al-Attiyah / Mathieu Baumel crew (Toyota Hilux) to retire in the third special stage, after taking second place after two special stages. On the second run, Krzysztof Hołowczyc, the leader of the rally, had to retire after his Mini broke down, and the fierce attacker Kuba Przygoński lost the wheel in his Toyota and spent over 40 minutes on repair.

Peterhansel takes control

Stephane Peterhansel came to Wysoka Grzęda Baja Poland with a new pilot, Edouard Boulanger, and he started the Mini All4Racing, which was already several years old, and its performance cannot be compared to the latest Dakar prototypes. But the 13-time winner of the Dakar Rally used his amazing experience, took advantage of his rivals' bad luck and after two runs of the training ground in Drawsko Pomorskie, he became the leader of the rally with a lead of just over 14 minutes over the Ten Brinke / Colsoul duo in Toyota Hilux. Third place at the end of the day for the Małuszyński duo, who are nearly 25 minutes behind the leader.

The fastest time in the UTV vehicle has the Aron Domżała / Szymon Gospodarczyk (Can-Am X3) duo, who are fourth in the general classification, and Valtr, Valtr and Kaplanek (IVECO Powerstar 6400) are the fastest trucks. As part of MPRB, Maciej Giemza (Husqvarna) is the leader in the motorcyclist category, Marcin Wilkołek (Polaris) is the fastest competitor on a quad with four-wheel drive, and Kamil Wiśniewski (Yamaha) is in the lead in the quad category with two-wheel drive.

On Sunday, the competition will take place at a distance of almost 54 km on two special stages of Lubieszyn-Dobra and Dobra-Szczecin. Peterhansel and Boulanger seem to be the main contenders for victory, their first in the Polish round of the FIA ​​World Cup.

Quotes after Day 2 at Wysoka Grzęda Baja Poland:

Stephane Peterhansel, Mini All4Racing: I was very surprised that we finished the third stage in first place, especially since I wasn't pushing hard. I saw the crews stopping. We didn't have it easy either due to problems with the car. Therefore, we drove the last 40 km of the stage very gently.

Bernhard Ten Brinke, Toyota Hilux: We had problems with visibility through the windshield in the morning, but the mechanics at the service park did a great job to fix it and we started our afternoon test run very well. I think we were going at a pace to fight for time in the top three, but then more trouble started. The GPS system signaled that a crew was behind us. I checked several times if anyone actually caught up with us, but no one was there. Then our charging system broke, so we had to stop and plug in a spare battery. We managed to restart the car, but we covered the final kilometers with practically no electrical devices - lights, wipers or airflow. We got to the service park thanks to Prokop and Małuszyński.

Michał Małuszyński, Mini John Cooper Works Rally: We tried to keep the pace high, although it was very, very hard. It was a hell of a difficult part, especially on the second run, but we did well. We also did not avoid problems. Some of them were small, but significant under these conditions. For example, the sprinklers did not spray my part of the glass, so sometimes we deliberately drove into the water to splash the glass a little and wash it. We also overheated the engine, which caused it to work in safe mode. Although it may have helped us, because we had to drive slower, the risk of falling off the road was also lower.