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Three-time European Rally champion Kajetan Kajetanowicz is set to contest his first full season in the World Rally Championship’s WRC2 class in 2019, switching from Ford to Volkswagen machinery.
Following a hat-trick of ERC titles between 2015 and ’17, Kajetanowicz left the series to focus on a WRC2 graduation.
But an uncertain sponsorship situation last year made his Lotos Rally Team wait until May before announcing its plans and he had to settle for a four-event WRC2 programme.
This year he will contest seven events, and will switch brand for the first time since 2013 as he moves away from the M-Sport Poland-run Ford Fiesta R5 to a VW Polo GTI R5 prepared by Austrian company Baumschlager Rallye & Racing.
“I am grateful to M-Sport Poland for the past five years and the great success we shared,” said Kajetanowicz.
Kajetanowicz ended up 10th in last year’s WRC2 standings, with his best results a pair of fourth-place finishes in Turkey and Catalunya.
His 2019 programme is set to comprise seven events, beginning with March’s Tour of Corsica – which Kajetanowicz described as “definitely one of the toughest Tarmac events in the world”.
Kajetanowicz said the team would “try to conduct as many test sessions as possible” beforehand, adding that a comprehensive test programme was “new for us”.