Team Poland earned first bragging rights in Drifting Qualifying at the FIA Motorsport Games, as an incredible turnout of 30 nations were in action to entertain the crowds ahead of Saturday’s main event.
All nations enjoyed a pair of runs each to impress the three judges marking them on Line, Angle and Style, but it was the Team Poland entry of Jakub Przygoński that turned their heads most of all with two runs that were both good enough for the best scores of the afternoon.
With a tough marker to beat in the first effort of 95 points from possible 100, the Toyota GR86 driver produced an even more spectacular performance just moments later to score 98, confirming top spot in Qualifying ahead of the knockout battles on Saturday.
Closest to the Polish contingent was that of Team UK and the impressive Martin Richards, who strung together a superb opening run that was enough for the runner-up acolade by scoring 92 points in his Nissan Skyline R32 - surviving a missing bumper after the slightest cone clip on corner entry.
A mighty performance from Team Kuwait put them a well-deserved third in the standings, after Ali Makhseed’s two runs both surpassed scores of 85. The top five was rounded out by the entries of Team Lithuania and Norway, with Benediktas Čirba (BMW E92) and Odd-Helge Helstad (Nissan S15) respectively putting together clean runs on an otherwise tricky bespoke track at Circuit Paul Ricard.
With the knockout stages now featuring the top 16 - with 32 entries otherwise needed - it meant that there were several scalps that suffered misfortunes along the way. Most of all was last year’s champions, Team Ukraine, as a non-score for Dmytro Illiuk for an infringement set the foundations for him finishing down in 28th place in his exuberant Nissan 200sx.
Among the other nations making it into the top 16 in the results included Romania, France, Georgia, Denmark, Latvia, Greece, Hong Kong/China, Hungary, Estonia, Sweden and Finland.
Tandem Practice will take place on Saturday morning before the knockout stages and Final kick off from 13:45, with first place taking on 16th, second battling 15th, and so on to decide the medals.
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