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Jeets back in the ERC – with a ŠKODA

Estonian driver Raul Jeets begins his second season in the FIA European Rally Championship on the Circuit of Ireland this week, and will be driving a new ŠKODA Fabia R5.

Last year, Jeets used a Ford Fiesta R5 from compatriot Markko Martin's team on seven ERC round, and scored top-six finishes in both his home event auto24 Rally Estonia and the SEAJETS Acropolis Rally. Now he's switching to Latvian squad Sports Racing Technologies, which showed the speed of its Fabia with Nikolay Gryazin in Valais last year and will run a similar model for Ralfs Sirmacis this season.

"First impressions are very positive and we feel very comfortable with the new car," said Jeets. "Unfortunately due to the postponing of Rally Liepāja our experience with the ŠKODA is still small but we feel more confident with every stage kilometre."

Jeets will be returning to the lanes of Northern Ireland having finished ninth there last year.

He added: "Since our strength is driving on loose surfaces, we find it difficult to attack the podium but our goal is to improve last year's position. This season we will be focusing on the ERC events that we have been competing on the year before with some new rallies included. We will do our best to challenge the leaders of the championship and aim for the top three in championship."

Zdroj: fiaerc.com