Rally Liepāja

Rally Liepaja
Statusactive
Genremotorsporting event
Frequencyannual
Location(s)Liepāja
Country Latvia
Years active11
Inaugurated2013
Websitewww.lvrally.com/en

The Rally Liepāja is an international rallying event that travels northwards along the coastline of the Baltic Sea from Liepāja to Ventspils in Latvia. The event is a round of the European Rally Championship and the Latvian Rally Championship.

History

The rally was run for the first time in 2013 as the first international auto racing event to be held in Latvia since gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and just the second motorsport event after the motorcycle Speedway Grand Prix of Latvia.

Originally the rally was designed as a snow rally and unlike its neighbour in the ERC calendar, the Jänner Rallye, was not a tarmac based event but a traditional snow rally similar to events like Rally Sweden.The inaugural event was won by Finnish driver Jari Ketomaa driving a Ford Fiesta RRC in a one-off appearance for the British Autotek Motorsport team in the European Rally Championship.

In 2016 the rally was moved to a September date, becoming a gravel rally, before settling into October in 2017.

The rally joined the World Rally Championship calendar as Rally Latvia in 2024.[1]

Winners

Sourced from:[2]

Year Winner Car
2013 Finland Jari Ketomaa Ford Fiesta RRC
2014 Finland Esapekka Lappi Škoda Fabia S2000
2015 Republic of Ireland Craig Breen Peugeot 208 T16 R5
2016 Latvia Ralfs Sirmacis Škoda Fabia R5
2017 Russia Nikolay Gryazin Škoda Fabia R5
2018 Russia Nikolay Gryazin Škoda Fabia R5
2019 Sweden Oliver Solberg Volkswagen Polo GTI R5
2020 Sweden Oliver Solberg Volkswagen Polo GTI R5
2021 Latvia Nikolay Gryazin Volkswagen Polo GTI R5
2022 Latvia Mārtiņš Sesks Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo
2023 Latvia Mārtiņš Sesks Škoda Fabia RS Rally2
2024† Finland Kalle Rovanperä Toyota GR Yaris Rally1

† — Rally was part of the World Rally Championship.

References

  1. ^ Howard, Tom (17 February 2023). "Latvia joins WRC calendar from 2024". Motorsport.com. Motorsport Network. Retrieved 19 February 2023.
  2. ^ eWRC-results.com. "rally database". eWRC-results.com. Retrieved 2019-10-23.


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