During Friday, three special stages were cancelled or interrupted due to fans being in the wrong places to watch the rally.
The Rally Poland became known for similar issues in the late 2010s and mainly for this reason, the event lost its WRC status after the 2017 season.
Unfortunately, over the past seven years, nothing seems to have changed, and this was the topic of the day.
Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville, who leads the championships, however, did not notice any problems, so the Belgian was quite puzzled by the organiser’s decisions.
“I don’t really have anything to say about it because in my opinion everything worked perfectly all the time”, said Neuville.
“I’m quite surprised that so many stages were cancelled because I didn’t notice any risk there”, Neuville continued.
Neuville was the first car on the road, so one would have expected him to notice something. However, he reminded that a rally driver doesn’t have much time to watch the spectators.
“I, of course, had to focus on driving as well, so it’s entirely possible that I didn’t see everything”, he admitted.
Neuville will get a better starting position for Saturday, but he did not believe it would help much. The Belgian is only seventh in the rally after the first proper driving day and is already nearly half a minute behind his teammate Andreas Mikkelsen, who is leading the rally.
“To be honest, I don’t think the starting position will help much tomorrow. Except, of course, if it rains overnight. We fought hard and did what we could today in these conditions”, Neuville summed up.
The Rally Poland offers seven special stages on Saturday. The competition ends on Sunday.
