After two days and 16 special stages of World Rally Championship action, the final leg of Rally Croatia is a shorter, four-stage affair.
But don’t for a second think it’s an easy cruise to finish; far from it.
DirtFish has leaned on WRC3 driver Tom Williams’s expertise thus far this weekend for our stage descriptions, but Williams was unable to recce Sunday’s tests so it’s over to current Junior WRC driver Jon Armstrong to give us the lowdown.
Armstrong currently heads the opening round of the 2021 Junior WRC with a 22.5 second advantage over Finn Lauri Joona.
Rally Croatia Saturday Report
Find out what happened on the second day of the WRC's newest rally
SS17/19 Bliznec – Pila (15.65 miles)
This one I’m referring to as the mountain stage. It starts off with an ascent up a mountain on a single-track road but there’s still plenty of room to push. Naturally, for a mountain ascent, there are lots of hairpins and the first half of the stage consists mainly of deceptive corners. Once you reach the top of the climb the road widens out to a double-width track which gives you room to perfect your racing line with several different lines to take.
The stage goes back downhill to finish with longer corners. It’s unique to the entire rally and reminds me a lot of Monte Carlo.
Hyundai Motorsport
SS18/20 Zagorska Sela – Kumrovec (8.75 miles)
The 10th different and final stage of the rally, which will of course be the powerstage, is a total contrast to the earlier stage on Sunday. This one is quite narrow and bumpy throughout and will likely be quite muddy too. Junctions are frequent and there are quite a few blind crests and corner cuts available to take too.
It’s a bit more like the rest of the rally whereas SS17/19 is very different.
