ENG - Season Recap 2025 – My First Year in Rallying – Paul

The journey began in November at the ADAC Rally School in Sulingen, where I obtained my license and started working with my brother on a plan for how we could enter the sport.Originally, we considered starting with a Golf R in Group G, but in the end we chose something completely different – the Lancia Ypsilon HF Rally4.

The car arrived a bit later than expected, so Bad Schmiedeberg became my first-ever rally. I had only sat in the car twice before – so the nerves were definitely there. At least we were able to do the recce with the Lancia, which gave me some confidence, even though our pacenotes were far from perfect. At the end of the recce I lightly clipped the wing mirror on an anti-cut, and it became clear that Jeannette, my co-driver, would need some patience with me.

But once we were at the start line, the nervousness suddenly disappeared.

It almost felt normal to stand in front of a countdown clock again – a feeling I previously only knew from downhill mountain bike racing. Only this time I wasn’t wearing a full-face helmet in the forest, but sitting in a rally car on gravel.

We drove conservatively and cleanly in Bad Schmiedeberg and brought the car home without a scratch. For my first rally, that was a very good feeling.

Two weeks later we continued with the South Sweden Rally – without any idea of what to expect. I was imagining wide gravel roads, but instead we faced narrow gravel forest tracks, lined with rocks and trees.

Many people didn’t believe we would make it to the finish – and to be honest, Jeannette and I had our doubts too. But thanks to her excellent pacenotes in the car and a lot of focus, we made it to the finish safely – apart from two small moments of surprise.

The grand finale of the season was the Lausitz Rallye with 155 competitive kilometres – the toughest rally of the year for us.

The shakedown runs went anything but smoothly: with worn tyres from Sweden I had zero grip in a 90-degree corner and slid straight on into a forest road. Confidence? Gone for the moment. But during the recce the next day, I realised how much we had improved – especially in how we build our pacenotes. Despite a puncture, we finished quickly and needed barely any corrections.

In the end we finished 7th out of 12 in our class – a result I am genuinely happy with.