The mantle of the 2024 Lithuanian car rally season was unveiled in Lazdijai. After the Visaginas rally, we hypothetically asked what Irmantas Buivydas’ pace would be in a full-mileage rally with a full field of competitors, both in his class and in the overall standings. The answer is the same as for Visaginas. Perhaps there was more “close call” moments, but the car behaved wonderfully in Irmantas’ hands. This is also reflected in the result – the brothers’ crew confidently won the LARČ5 classification, and in the overall standings they only lost out to the factory Rally2/R5 outfit and its crews.
However, things would not be so easy for Irmantas later on for several reasons. Firstly, Deividas Gezevičius was unable to show his full pace due to the problems that arose during the rally, which both slowed down the car and distracted Deividas from his 100% concentration. After fixing the issues that arose, Deividas should be breathing very hard on the back of the rookie crew. As the season progresses, these two crews will certainly be joined by other LARČ5 rookies – Giedrius Firantas with Matas Valiulis and their VW Polo N5. Giedrius went to this rally without any training, so it is natural that both Giedrius had to get used to the car and the car had to get used to the new crew. The crew with the VW Polo drove fast and clean and positioned themselves behind Deividas Gezevičius, but then came the last -15 kilometer long – special stage where it finally clicked for Giedrius. And in such a way he jumped up two positions in the overall standings and almost overtook the Deividas. This shows that the potential of this crew is impressive and this car, finally equipped with a great design, will only fight for victory in the LARČ5 class. However, the next event will be the Rally Žemaitija, which are Buivydas home roads.
What happened next? A good old duel between the LARČ1 class competitors and the two excellent Škoda Fabia N5+ drivers Linas Vaškys and Eugenijus Sladkevičius. Linas won it with a lead of just under nine seconds, he was ousted from seventh place overall by the aforementioned Giedrius Firantas in the final stage. The start of the rally was somewhat complicated for both on Friday evening, but these complications cost Linas less and he was already eighth after the first day. Eugenijus Sladkevičius, meanwhile, had to win back one position after another throughout Saturday, which he managed to do, moving up six positions in the overall standings.
Now, the remaining four crews remained to be discussed. On Friday, Paulius Beniušis had a lot of fun, followed by Aurimas Eidžiūnas. Tomas Šmagarys was also hot on their heels. Unfortunately, the latter had a very unlucky start on Saturday – right in the first special stage, on the asphalt part, Tomas drove too fast into the right-hand corner, the rear of the car ran away and the centrifugal forces did the rest. The result was a lot of rollovers on the grass and a badly damaged car. Fortunately, the crew remained healthy. This left Paulius and Aurimas in the fight for fourth place in the LARČ5 class, as the guest from Estonia, Jaak Tammeka, has not yet matched the Lithuanian speed. After almost one hundred kilometers of special stage, the Citroen C3 crew was 23 seconds faster. Although Paulius and Aurimas failed to make it into the top 10, they finished in a really great 12th and 13th place, with Jaak Tammeka taking 26th place in a new-design Ford Fiesta N5.
See you in exactly one month at the Rally Žemaitija 2024 🙂
| Driver | Co-driver | Car | Team | Class | Time | Overall | Class | |||
 | Irmantas Buivydas | | Edvinas Buivydas |  | Ford Fiesta N5 | 7Bet Racing by RALLY4FUN | LARČ5 | 52:13.56 | 5 | 1 |
| Deividas Gezevičius | | Tomas Nenartavičius | | Ford Fiesta N5 | Nordis racing team | LARČ5 | 52:47.65 | 6 | 2 |
| Giedrius Firantas | | Matas Valiulis |  | VW Polo N5 | Autoralis | LARČ5 | 52:51.83 | 7 | 3 |
| Linas Vaškys | | Laurynas Paškevičius |  | Škoda Fabia N5+ | ORLEN Lietuva-Mažeikių ASK | LARČ1 | 53:02.06 | 8 | 1 |
| Eugenijus Sladkevičius | | Marius Kairys | | Škoda Fabia N5+ | Samsonas Motorsport | LARČ1 | 53:11.97 | 10 | 2 |
| Paulius Beniušis | | Kristupas Adinavičius |  | Citroen C3 N5 | ABEPA ST-SPORT | LARČ5 | 53:47.87 | 12 | 4 |
| Aurimas Eidžiūnas | | Ugnius Vainevičius | | Ford Fiesta N5 | 7Bet Racing | LARČ5 | 54:10.33 | 13 | 5 |
 | Jaak Tammeka | | Jaanus Virro | | Ford Fiesta N5 | 7Bet Racing | LARČ5 | 56:49.89 | 26 | 6 |
| Tomas Šmagarys | | Valdas Čiuplys |  | Hyundai i20 N5 | AUTORALIS ASK | LARČ5 | DNF | – | – |
