The snow and ice of Rally Alūksne played host to the opening rounds of both the Estonian and Lativan 2025 national rally championships. Recently confirmed to contest six rounds of the 2025 FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) with M-Sport Ford World Rally Team, the Latvian driver Mārtiņš Sesks and co-driver Renārs Francis (Škoda Fabia SRT Proto) dominated the slippery conditions to claim the overall event win by 2m 23.87s from fellow Latvians Emīls Blūms/Didzis Eglītis (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX). Third place overall went to Ralfs Sirmacis/Armands Biti (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII), who was locked in a rally-long battle with Blūms finishing just 5.65s ahead of Sirmacis. It should be noted that Sirmacis was hit with a ten-second jumpstart penalty on the final stage. This duel will undoubtedly continue throughout 2025.
While Sesks is not registered for either the Estonian or Latvian championships, the championship points went to 2024 Latvian Rally Champion Blūms. He now leads both national championships after round one.
Kalvis Blūms/Ralfs Lipstoks (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI) claimed fourth place overall from another intense battle that saw Jānis Vorobjovs/Ester Zakmani (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII) finish just 6.70s behind in fifth place overall.
Allan Popov/Aleksander Prõttčikov (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X) finished sixth overall and were the fastest in the Estonian rankings.
Sesks shared after the event: “We not only like to compete in Alūksne, but we also manage to show good performance and achieve a good result here. Thank you for organizing the rally, this was a great opportunity for us to “wake up” after the winter break and I hope that the season will continue in exactly the same spirit as it began!”
Blūms said: “A definitely difficult, but great start to the season! If from the outside it seemed to someone that everything was going smoothly, then it definitely wasn’t – we made a few mistakes, and we also had to adapt and make various changes throughout the rally, which was a very difficult task. But despite all the challenges, we really enjoyed the fight with Ralfs Sirmacis – in such a rally, where you have to fight for victory right up to the finish of the last special stage, we get the greatest satisfaction. Thank you, Ralfs, and thank you to everyone who supports us.”
The fastest Estonian, Popov, said: “Last year was a short break when we only went to the Cesis rally. We got a good result there. Four days before the rally, we decided that we would drive here and the plan is to drive the entire season in both Estonia and Latvia. We couldn’t test before the race and that’s why the first day’s result was poor, with everything that goes with it. Today it went much better and the times said so too. Latvians are fast at their home rally and if you haven’t competed for a long time, you can’t catch up with them right away. We drove slowly and didn’t want to make mistakes, because a fast rally and a mistake can end up really badly here.”
The next round of the Latvian Rally Champion will be held on 7-8 February for Rally Sarma. The Estonian Rally Champion heads to Otepää Talveralli for round two on 1 February.
Rally Alūksne Overall Results:
01: M. Sesks/R. Francis (Škoda Fabia SRT Proto) – 41m 48.66s
02: E. Blūms/D. Eglītis (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX) + 2m 23.87s
03: R. Sirmacis/A. Biti (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII) + 2m 29.52s
04: K. Blūms/R. Lipstoks (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI) + 3m 19.19s
05: J. Vorobjovs/E. Zakmane (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII) + 3m 25.89s
06: A. Popov/A. Prõttšikov (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X) + 3m 47.05s
07: S. Viilo/J. Viilo (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX) + 4m 00.63s
08: M. Kenavs/M. Kenavs (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI) + 4m 30.53s
09: M. Samsonas/E. Snitkas (BMW E36 M3) + 5m 08.14s
10: G-K. Kähr/K. Tammai (Subaru Impreza) + 6m 02.55s