Number 100 goes to the leader of the Romanian championship

Skoda has sold its 100th Fabia RS Rally2. The anniversary copy of the customer competition model was handed over to Andrei Gîrtofan during a small ceremony at the motorsport headquarters in Mladá Boleslav. The 28-year-old Romanian is currently leading the national rally championship in his home country.

In the second half of the current season, Skoda will offer an alternative gearbox for the Fabia RS Rally, with which the car can be even better tuned for fast events such as the Rally Finland. In addition, the responsiveness of the braking system and the durability of the brake ventilation ducts have recently been improved.

One year after its homologation, the Skoda Fabia Rally2 won the WRC2 drivers' title with the Finn Esapekka Lappi in the 2016 season. The Swede Pontus Tidemand and Jan Kopecký from the Czech Republic took the title in the following two years. In 2019, future World Rally Champion Kalle Rovanperä (Finland) won the WRC2 Pro title with the Rally Evo, while Frenchman Pierre-Louis Loubet dominated the WRC2 Drivers Cup. Andreas Mikkelsen from Norway then won both the 2021 European Rally Championship and the WRC2 category of the World Rally Championship (WRC) in the Evo. In 2022, Emil Lindholm from Finland became WRC2 champion with the Skoda.

The RS Rally2 made its WRC debut last year at the 2023 Rallye Monte Carlo. Andreas Mikkelsen won the WRC2 drivers' title again in the very first year as the driver for the Toksport WRT team supported by the factory. And in the current season, customer teams have already celebrated many WRC2 victories with the rally car from the Czech Republic.

Since homologation in 2015, the various versions of the Skoda Fabia in Rally2 specification have won 28 regional and 125 national championships. Over the past nine years, they have made around 22,000 rally starts. This has resulted in 2563 victories and 6400 podium finishes. Since 2015, Skoda has delivered almost 600 Fabia Rally2 models to 42 countries worldwide. (aum)