The general training before the upcoming Lithuanian rally championship took place in Visaginas. If we will have 9 N5 crews at the upcoming LARČ opening at the Lazdijai rally, it was possible to see a little more than half of them in Visaginas – five N5 crews. The rally in one-day format consisted of 4 gravel and one asphalt special stages which all participants drove through twice. Perhaps the biggest difference from the LARČ competition was that in the Sprint rally, the sprint championship participants started first, and there weren’t that few of them. This meant that the guests, which included all the N5s, never had a clean road. In places, the really soft roads of Visaginas and the stones hidden in them were a little disconcerting. But the N5s are solid cars and ruts and stones didn’t cause too many problems.
From the very first special stage, it was clear that the change from the combination of R2T symbols to the N5 would not cause Irmantas and Edvinas any difficulties. Even in reverse. Top 2 times and just a fracture of a second behind Giedrius Notkus was more than encouraging. Later there was a stalled engine at the start, but after that, Irmantas and Edvinas showed the top 3-4 times until the city stage. Such a pace led to a possible fight for the overall podium in the last two SSs, which took place on the streets of Visaginas. However, the first few hundred meters “cooled down” the young crew, as an anti-cut curb placed next to the road caused damage to the car, slowing down the Ford Fiesta N5. Despite a slight dropback, the N5 debutants maintained their leading position among the N5 and N5+ crews. An extremely solid debut left many question marks – if they drive like this in the first few kilometers, how will they drive later?
In Visaginas we got to see a good old duel between two Škoda Fabia N5+ crews. Both Linas Vaškys and Eugenijus Sladkevičius tested their cars before Visaginas, so their form was similar. After the first two stages, both were in the top ten and were only separated by three seconds. But then something rare happened: Linas Vaškys and Laurynas Paškevičius had to withdraw from the competition. Eugenijus, who was left without his main rival, wowed the spectators with his flamboyant driving style and finished seventh overall and fifth in AWD+.
Aurimas Eidžiūnas and Justas Barysas finished not far behind Eugenijus Sladkevičius, 22 seconds behind him. Observant fans of the rally have probably noticed that this crew from Vilnius was really fast with the Ford Fiesta N5. The crew’s diligent work, both in driving and pacenotes during the off-season with the help of Ervinas Snitkas and Deividas Gezevičius, was very helpful. It seems that the competition in the LARČ5 will be even more intense. The performance of Paulius Beniušis and Kristupas Adinavičius is also very pleasing. Last season, the checkered flags for crew from Kaunas were a rare occasion, so the start of this season is extremely optimistic. The Citroen C3 N5 crew finished eleventh in the overall standings and third in the N5 class.
Now we will take a short break and meet again on May 17 and 18 at the 7Bet Rally Lazdijai
| Driver | Co-driver | Car | Team | Class | Time | Overall | Class | |||
 | Irmantas Buivydas | | Edvinas Buivydas |  | Ford Fiesta N5 | 7Bet Racing by RALLY4FUN | N5 | 29:44.58 | 6 | 1 |
| Eugenijus Sladkevičius | | Marius Kairys |  | Škoda Fabia N5+ | Samsonas Motorsport | AWD+ | 30:01.39 | 7 | 5 |
| Aurimas Eidžiūnas | | Justinas Barysas | | Ford Fiesta N5 | 7Bet Racing | N5 | 30:23.62 | 8 | 2 |
| Paulius Beniušis | | Kristupas Adinavičius |  | Citroen C3 N5 | ABEPA ST-SPORT | N5 | 30:41.85 | 11 | 3 |
| Linas Vaškys | | Laurynas Paškevičius | | Škoda Fabia N5+ | ORLEN Lietuva-Mažeikių ASK | AWD+ | DNF | – | – |
