Scott Pedder and co-driver Dale Moscatt have undertaken an important pre-event test session ahead of this weekend’s Rally Poland, one of the fastest and most challenging events on the World Rally Championship calendar.
The flowing nature of the Polish stages leads to extreme speeds for drivers to contend with, and having made the switch to a Skoda Fabia R5 for this season’s campaign on the WRC2 Pedder is feeling extremely confident of another good result once the rally begins.
“From all reports the Skoda is up to 20 kilometres an hour faster than our rival R5 cars,” explained Scott. “Last year in Poland the Skoda’s were unbelievably quick, so knowing we’re in equal machinery this year is hugely encouraging, in fact I can’t wait to get on those fast roads and see what the car is capable of.”
Apart from the high speeds Pedder will also have to contend with a road surface that will be heavily rutted by the time he enters each stage. “The surface in Poland is very sandy, so with the World Rally Cars and at least another ten WRC2 cars starting ahead of us it’s going to be a real challenge.”
“We had a taste of what to expect on the test stage today, it was really rutted out and so we didn’t achieve as much as I would have liked in terms of setup. But I remain confident we have a good base to work from after Portugal and we’ll just have to knuckle down and get some good runs in during shakedown later in the week.”
The Polish Rally marked a turning point for Pedder during his 2015 WRC2 campaign, despite struggling with power steering issues during the event. “This event last year was the first time I started to see how competitive we could be in an R5 car. I’d found a setup that was working for me and I could push at the speeds I felt comfortable with,” said Scott.
“Coming off a decent result last time out in Portugal I’m confident we can continue to set top five WRC2 times, and if we can have a clean rally there is every chance of a podium,” he added.
Pedder and Moscatt will be fighting hard though, against both the conditions and a stellar entry list of WRC2 contenders. “It’s a pretty incredible entry list, over 25 serious contenders, I think it’s going to be the biggest fight of my career.”
The event shakedown and the opening Super Special Stage all take place on Thursday before the rally gets underway with the first demanding special stages on Friday morning.