Alexey Lukyanuk has vowed to “fight” to become the first Russian to win the FIA European Rally Championship after deciding to focus on the ERC instead of a WRC2 campaign.

Lukyanuk had planned to follow a long line of ERC graduates by stepping up to the world championship this season. But changes to his programme for 2017 means he will contest the Azores Airlines Rallye later this month ahead of a full assault on the oldest international rally series.

“We will start again in the ERC and fight for victory,” said Lukyanuk.

“At the beginning of the year we tried the world championship but those plans were based on sponsor support expectations. Regretfully they have not been realised but at least we made it to the start of one WRC2 event and now we have made the decision to participate in the ERC where the costs are less.

“The fight for the title should be serious according to the list of competitors that plan to participate and we are preparing for the first event, doing pacenote training, studying onboards and looking forward to the new season to start.”

Lukyanuk, who will continue his partnership with co-driver Alexey Arnautov, will once again drive a Ford Fiesta R5 for H-Racing, albeit with a new colour scheme.

“For the first two events we will start in unusual colors – we've got support from Rosgosstrakh (RGS), but we continue our long-term co-operation with Boris Zimin and his support helps us to move further,” said the 36-year-old, runner-up to Kajetan Kajetanowicz in last year’s ERC.

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