Post-event quotes from all the FIA European Rally Championship class winners on Rally Liepāja appear below. The ERC1 Junior and ERC3 Junior quote sheet will be available separately.

OLIVER SOLBERG (FIA ERC1, FIA ERC1 Junior winner)
“It’s fantastic, this is a rally I love and I love the Latvian roads. Coming back here again is just fantastic but it was not an easy rally I can tell you. The car went on three cylinders before stage eight and I thought if I put the ALS on maybe it will clear. I drove maybe six kilometres on three cylinders and I was like ‘no, no, no’ but then in went okay again, luckily. Then I pushed very hard and luckily I only lost six seconds so I was quite surprised. We were lucky the engine started working again because I was very worried. I will probably do more ERC races, maybe Azores, so I am excited to continue my ERC programme.”

TIBOR ÉRDI JR (FIA ERC2 winner)
“We had a problem with the engine, same like in Poland three years ago. We stopped twice on the stage but we were very happy to be at the finish. But it was quite okay because had a lead in the category that we had tried to manage. We very much like this rally and before the rally I was really looking forward to the stages. We are very happy, we smile and we are happy for the championship.”

KEN TORN (FIA ERC3, FIA ERC3 Junior winner)
“When you don’t have any pressure on you it’s harder to drive and it was like this [when Mārtiņš Sesks retired]. Today started with the motivation that today is not our day but it was coming step by step and here we are with the victory again. In the morning Mārtiņš took some time from us but he’s at home and we knew it would be like this. We had some small mistakes, some problems with the tyre wear but I don’t think we could do better.”

MARTIN RADA (Abarth Rally Cup winner)
“We are very happy. We are here in the finish and thank you very much for the organisers. It is the first time for us in this race, the first time in the gravel with this car. We try to learn every day, every time. I was enjoying the driving on gravel. It’s my first start on gravel with a rear-wheel-drive car, I only did one gravel rally before but with front-wheel drive. It was not so easy and the grip was different in places, but I enjoyed and even though I came here only to learn.”

ALEXEY LUKYANUK (FIA European Rally Championship leader)
“I could not have done more. Oliver is quite fast here with a lot of testing and practice. But the background work they do is quite different. For us it was one day of testing, for Mads [Østberg] also, and we were more or less on the same pace as Mads. We cannot do any better because we were completely on the limit. You cannot win everything. I was happy with my win in Rome and happy with my third place here. It’s the maximum we could achieve and I have no complaints. It could be even worse because in qualifying two days ago I was in ninth position but now we are on the podium. I was not expecting to be on the podium to be honest so I’m happy with my performance, with the car and with the tyres so thanks to everybody. It was a good weekend all in all.”

ENDS