The 25-year-old proved already last summer, in both Poland and his home event in Latvia, that he thrives on the region’s ultra-fast gravel roads. In Poland, he finished fifth on his Rally1 debut despite driving a non-hybrid Ford, and in Latvia, he was holding third place until the final stage, before a transmission failure dropped him to seventh.
This time in the Polish ERC round, Sesks dominated with nine fastest stage times and won the rally by over a minute ahead of local favourite Miko Marczyk. On the rally-ending Power Stage, Sesks capped off his performance with a crushing stage win – over ten seconds faster than anyone else.
“He’s a world-class driver. From one perspective he’s a WRC driver but the second thing, on such fast gravel stages, he’s one of the best in the world and was showing better driving,” Marczyk praised on the ERC website.
“It gives you an indication of when you go to the top flight how you can step up a bit further. But he’s always been super-fast on these types of roads, it’s no surprise he’s been the winner and whenever you’re driving against it, it’s definitely impressive,” added Jon Armstrong, who finished third.
Baltic and Polish gravel stages are clearly Sesks’ domain, but so far he hasn’t replicated such heroics in other types of rallies at World Championship level. In Sweden, he finished sixth, but struggled in Portugal and Sardinia. In Sardinia, he crashed out already on the second stage, which cast doubt over his participation in the late-June Acropolis Rally.
Still, Sesks is steadily closing in on the elite of world rallying. This year, big expectations are placed on him especially in the WRC rounds in Estonia and Finland.
Norwegian Mads Østberg, who has extensive WRC experience and now competes in the ERC, was full of praise for the Latvian’s drive.
“The speed he is showing is something else. Immediately we understood that we cannot compare to him, we have to compare to the rest. He was doing an incredible job and it was a well, well deserved victory on these types of roads, we saw it last year in the WRC,” Østberg said.
“I would say he is one of the absolute best in the world on these roads if not the best. If you put him in the best WRC car against all the other drivers, they would struggle.”
Perhaps the boldest claim came from Swedish rising star Mille Johansson:
“It’s a good meeting point. You can match your own pace and see where you are. He’s super-fast here in Poland and Latvia as well. I don’t know how many drivers that would beat him here this weekend, probably no one, not even Kalle Rovanperä in a Rally2 I don’t think he could beat Mārtiṇš this weekend.”
