Traditionally, this track attracts large crowds of fans from the Baltic countries, but this year there were more Lithuanians here than usual – thousands of fans came to support Benediktas Čirba, who is fighting in the championship’s top ten.
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The Lithuanian started the weekend with a difficult qualification. In the first run, he scored 80.1 points, and in the second, he improved his result to 84.2 points. This was enough to take 24th place out of 32 participants and advance to the knockout rounds.
In the TOP32 stage, Čirba faced Finn Juha Rintanen. The first run of the pair was extremely close – the judges announced “One More Time”, which meant that the athletes were practically equal and had to repeat the battle.
The repeated duel became a true test of nerves. While driving in the “Chase” position, contact occurred due to the opponent’s mistake, so Čirba’s team had only 10 minutes for car repairs. The mechanics quickly performed the necessary work, and the Lithuanian managed to return to the track and continue the fight.
Driving in the “Lead” position, Benediktas demonstrated a confident performance and snatched victory, thus advancing to the TOP16 stage.
Here he was awaited by Israeli representative Itay Sadeh. The Lithuanian was superior in this battle as well and entered among the eight strongest participants of the stage. In the TOP8 stage, Čirba met one of the brightest favorites of the championship – Pole Piotr Więcek.
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The battle was extremely intense, but this time the Pole was superior. However, the stage did not end successfully for Więcek – he was involved in a major accident in the final.
Despite the loss in the TOP8 stage, this was one of Benediktas Čirba’s best performances this season. After a victory in the previous stage in Finland and a strong result in Riga, the Lithuanian rose to 7th place in the overall “Drift Masters” championship standings.
The next stage of the championship will take place on August 13–15 in Germany, at the impressive “Ferropolis” track, where Čirba will aim to continue his successful season and get even closer to the championship leaders.
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