Last year WRC 3 winner Sébastien Chardonnet has done this year two starts with DS3 R5 car and in Rally Italia Sardegna he achieved a second place in WRC 2 class. It is a first time for Sébastien Chardonnet and also for Citroën to start in Estonia.

Sébastien Chardonnet: ”It’s a real pleasure and a great opportunity for me to come to Estonia with the DS3 R5 to gain experience and to build my confidence. My objective here is to progress on each stage and also to prepare for Rally Finland which is the next round of the WRC 2. A real rally is always far better than tests to practice. I am very excited to discover the Estonian roads in ERC and I’m going to try to make the most of it!”

As the FIA ERC round is held for the first time in Estonia, all the top drivers from Estonia are present in auto24 Rally Estonia, including WRC 2 Rally Poland winner Ott Tänak (Ford Fiesta R5), Karl Kruuda (Peugeot 208 T16 R5), Siim Plangi ((Peugeot 208 T16 R5), Martin Kangur (Ford Fiesta) and many others. They will have strong competition from regular FIA ERC drivers, like series leader Esapekka Lappi and sharing second place with equal points Sepp Wiegand with Skoda Motorsport’s Skoda Fabia S2000 cars. Also, some fast drivers with N4 and R4 cars are the ones to follow, for example Alexey Lukjanuk and Kaspar Koitla.

Total 65 ERC crews are in the entry list of auto24 Rally Estonia. In FIA European Historic Sporting Rally Championship 37 crews are in the entry list and Estonian Rally Championship held on Saturday adds another 71 crews to auto24 Rally Estonia.