Transporting two €500,000 rally cars to the middle of nowhere must not keep Toksport’s logistics experts sleeping well at night, but it’s likely a challenge they enjoy doing the job.
But there’s no denying that transporting the cars to this weekend’s Azores Rally in the middle of the North Atlantic is more of a challenge than usual. But if anyone thinks this is a big challenge, then you add Croatia Quattro River Rally Karlovac rally, which will also take place this same weekend, where two more crews of the Toksport team will start. The distance between these rallies is about 3500 kilometers.
Photo: Sebastien Loeb
In addition, it should not be forgotten that Toksport is not a factory team. It is a private team that probably operates at an even higher level than the factory teams. That is why Toksport is currently one of the leading teams in the World Rally Championship.
Toksport team owner Serkan Duru is completely calm about these rallies. “We are getting used to it, because for the last two years we also drove the Clio Trophy in the ERC, and that was one of the reasons why we decided to stop, reduce revs and focus only on the WRC. We get used to it – it’s good.”
Duru admitted that splitting the team so that Sebastian Loeb and Andreas Mikkelsen would drive on the island of Portugal, and Gus Greensmith and Nikolaj Grjazins in Croatia (all of them will start with the new Škoda Fabia RS Rally2), has stretched the Toksport team to the maximum.
Gas Greensmith
“We split the team into two parts. As you know, we have had a huge stock of spare parts for Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo cars for several years, but the new Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 cars are two or three rallies old, and spare parts are limited. It makes everything a little more difficult.”
However, there have been no hiccups, and the cars are already with their drivers to start the competition this weekend. A victory in both rallies would be a great tribute to the team. It should be noted that all four drivers of the Toksport team have started more than 400 times in the WRC.
