Latvia: Louis Louka: “Continue the momentum of Poland”

What is your experience in Latvia?

With Grégoire, we played it twice in 2019 and in 2021 when it was in ERC. We will find pieces that we know, but there is nothing totally identical. There is an ES which is exactly the same as last year, but we were not there. From year to year, they are strong enough to renew themselves. The soil is more similar to what we had in Estonia. It's much more abrasive than in Poland. There are places where it looks like departmental roads where the surface is very hard, because there are trucks driving over it, but we should also find narrower parts where it will deepen more.

The division gives the impression of offering several ES which are only used once, but this is not completely the case?

The route is quite atypical. There are certainly sectors where we will do a single pass, but there are several where we take up kilometers that have already been used in another special. This means that there are sections of road that we will have seen 4 times during the reconnaissance. For the driver, it can be confusing if one day we turn right at an intersection and the next day we turn left. I will insist in my announcement, but Grégoire is always well prepared because he watched the videos beforehand. Above all, you have to be very focused. For the navigators, the workload is significant, because even if we return to the same place, we have to copy the notes for these kilometers. It's a bit of a splitting hairs lengthwise, but that's part of the job.

What will be your goal in Liepaja?

After Poland where we already had to be wide awake, here is another weekend where we will have to make a lot of commitments. Our approach will be similar to that of the previous round. As the rally is less known, this will undoubtedly level out performance. We like this profile, so it would be good to continue to reduce the gaps per kilometer with the fastest, while grabbing a few good places like we did 15 days ago.