After his previous two victories at the Azores and Fafe rallies, heading into the penultimate round of the 2021 European Rally Championship at Rally Hungry, Andreas Mikkelsen had one hand on the 2021 ERC trophy already with his 71 point lead.
A fast mixed asphalt rally was the 7th round of the ERC and covered 182km over 14 stages which would allow the Norwegian Mikkelsen to be crowned his second international rally title in just a week.
The event got underway with a short 4.35km Shakedown qualifying test for which a returning Nikolay Gryazin topped the timings.
The fifth round of the 2021 FIA European Rally Championship arrived on the stunning beautiful Mid-Atlantic Ocean island of São Miguel for the rescheduled 55th running of the Azores Rallye. This gravel rally would cover some 201km across just 13 stages and would take in some breathtaking scenery, which once again included that iconic Volcanic stage Sete Cidadesand.
TOK Sports Andreas Mikkelsen arrived on the Island leading the Championships with his new Co-Driver Elliot Edmondson, having only competed recently together for the first time on the WRC Acropolis Rally Greece.
The FIA European Rally Championship headed to Zlín in the Czech Republic for Round 4 of the 2021 season. Having been a part of the ERC for no less than 16 years, this years edition of the Czech rally was the 50th and once again offered up a challenging test across 15 Asphalt stages which covered some 210km.
Before the rally had even begun there was early drama for defending ERC champion and title contender Alexey Lukyanuk. The Russian suffered a sizable crash during pre-event testing which rendered his Citroen C3 out of action. Unable to repair the damage or find a replacement car ahead of the rally, he was left with no option but to sit out the rally, a terrible blow to his title defence.
The next stop on the FIA European Rally Championship calendar was Latvia for Rally Liepāja, Round 2 of the 2021 season. For an event that started out as a Winter rally back in 2013 but then made the switch to the autumn for a gravel rally in 2016; this year it received its largest entry to date, with some 89 crews entered.
12 stages were originally planned to cover 183km but this was reduced to just 10. Poland’s Mikołaj Marczyk set the benchmark time in his Skoda Fabia Rally 2 EVO on the short 4.6km Shakedown test on Friday evening ahead of the two times (2016 & 2017) Liepāja winner Nikolay Gryazin in his VW Polo GTi R5.
