Sergei Remennik and Marina Danilova won 2021 MX5 Rally
On the last day of January, the third round of the Russian Rally Cup finished in the vicinity of Asbest, Sverdlovsk region. The rally ended with the overall victory of Sergei Remennik and Marina Danilova in a new car for them – Oreca Suzuki Swift R4. But wait, the car is not that new, you will say and will be partly right. The car is familiar with the Asbest routes, but this acquaintance took place in the autumn of 2020 without the participation of the driver and co-driver, for whom it was then brought to the Sverdlovsk region. The Russian premiere of the kit car took place with a completely different crew – European champion Alexey Lukyanuk and Russian champion Dmitry Myachin studied the car capabilities in action and identified a number of issues requiring improvement.
Since then, the Oreca Suzuki Swift R4 has undergone minor upgrades to improve comfort and ergonomics during competition, and has been tested by several drivers in competitive conditions. Finally Sergei Remennik and the Suzuki kit car have met!
Sergei Remennik, driver, “The main idea of participation in this rally was that due to the difficult previous year, we were not able to test the car, although the guys brought it in the autumn. My first acquaintance with Suzuki took place at the beginning of last week – we first tried to drive on ice without loads, then we tried several short sections of roads along which special stages pass in summer. Alexey Lukyanuk, my friend and coach, came and we worked with the pacenotes – I have a lot to remember and recover after a long sports break. And the task for the race is to drive it and finish, get acquainted with the car and learn how to work with it. It is the biggest challenge in the rally to follow the notes as quickly as possible after such a long break”.
A weekly test program, of course, is not enough to fully “awaken” muscle memory and rush into battle from the first kilometers, but it is quite enough to understand the capabilities of the vehicle and get rid of excessive sports caution.
The route of one-day rally consisted of seven special stages – a total of four unique roads that were used in various combinations. The Mokrinsky special stage is, perhaps, the only one in the entire amount of used roads, where there are long straight sections and drivers can develop the maximum car speed. Here, the capabilities of the all-wheel drive classic rally vehicle were fully revealed that was used by Alexey Mironov, driving Mitsubishi Lancer Evo9. But the Remennik/Danilova crew did not allow Mironov to be a triumphant longer than one section of the rally.
A novelty of Asbest rallies – an ice speed section created on the surface of the flooded part of the quarry – opened the second section. The ice turned out to be more suitable for the nimble Suzuki, which found it easier to leave any corner, than for the clumsy Mitsubishi; and Sergei Remennik reduced the 2.5-second gap to Alexey Mironov, turning it into an almost seven-second advantage. The time gap at the race finish line between the two drivers, representing the miners’ dynasties, was 20.7 seconds.
Sergei Remennik, driver, “It was necessary to bring the idea to life: if our plans are destined to come true, we will spend another season in the European Rally Championship. Because this year the scoring categories will be the same. We still have a good deal of groundwork, experience of participation and strength for this championship, and we really would like to try ourselves again in the European series. Let’s see what happens, because there are many restrictions – visas, transport accessibility and other things. The work plan is such that we will try to participate in the 2021 FIA European Rally Championship with two teams – Prospeed and TBRacing”.
As a reminder, the crew of Sergei Remennik and Marina Danilova, participating in the competition in R4 international class vehicles, did not receive points in the national championship after the rally. Thus, technically, Alexey Mironov and Dmitry Petukhov became the winners of the third round of the Russian Rally Cup in the overall standings.
Text by Olga Eremeeva
Photo AutoSportMedia agency
Dmitry Myachin and Alexey Lukyanuk have joined forces, sharing the duties of a driver and a co-driver, in order to discover the Suzuki Swift R4 capabilities in competitive mode. Replacing each other as driver and co-driver, went a total of 178 kilometers of the racing distance – they tested the car capabilities in action, identified a number of issues requiring study to improve the Suzuki Swift, experimented with the settings and realized that the car is ready to go fast!
Dmitry Myachin,“This morning Alexey has driven through the Mokrinsky SS – it has been fast; it’s a pity that I had no time to raise my head to see how to do it, I’ve tried to read notes to him normally. So to speak, having cheered up, I drove the same special stage myself and, it should be noted, I liked how it turned out! I got used to the four-wheel drive pretty well for the first race and, of course, made mistakes. But they are connected not with the fact that I don’t know how a 4WD car behaves, but with the fact that I haven’t driven according to the notes for a year and a half. The car is very understandable for those who have never sat behind the wheel of an all-wheel drive car!
The purpose of such a large-scale test work and verification of sports equipment is obvious – this car will continue to take part in major national and international competitions, which the rally team will announce in the future.
Alexey Lukyanuk, co-driver, «Well, the car is cool! It drives really fast! We worked well at the tests, today we’ve made the notes good – we did such a high-quality job. Dmitry took a very good pace from the first special stage! It is clear that he lacks 4WD experience, but at the same time the car allows him to rush cheerfully; I even got high on the right! Unfortunately, we had some technical difficulties – the throttle valve was defective. During the second pass, we improved and reached the finish line. The car jumps perfectly well, that is, we “flew” there almost at full throttle on the Avianosets springboard – the liftoff was at a speed of around 155 km/h! It behaves very well in twisted corners, perfectly holds the bend; the balance is very pleasant, it allows you to enjoy very vigorously and dynamically.
Well, let’s show our cards completely! The car from the TBRacing team, which is the official partner of 
Alexey Lukyanuk, second driver, “The car looks technically like an R5, you look at all the components – suspension elements, etc. – everything is very high quality: fit of parts, workmanship and interior, and all elements under the hood are at an excellent level. It’s a sports car with all the necessary components – a short steering rack, competitive brakes, and long travel suspension. But it’s a little bit weaker in terms of motor power and not as, so to speak, ideal as the R5. But it makes a good impression, responds well to settings and is very fun to drive, and the acceleration dynamics to 160 km/h is not inferior to R5 class cars».
Dmitry Myachin, «“It’s clear that Alexey can win the race with anything, even with a VAZ, but from the team leader point of view – Lukyanuk needs to demonstrate this car potential, not just drive for pleasure. And I have to show this car capabilities for ordinary rally drivers”.
Sergei Remennik, driver, “It was a great rally! I’m happy that Marina was able to join me and we drove this rally together. It turns out to be a little bit more than a year without constant training – there were only occasional trips to competitions, so the lack of constant practice has its affect. Alas, we can’t keep such a high pace as the guys set, but we can drive safely and bring the car to the finish line without breakdowns. There are no secrets to add the pace, we know how to achieve it. We just need to pay due attention to it and have more practice behind the wheel. Vasily Gryazin, Denis Rostilov and Igor Bulantsev set a high pace, it was a pleasure to driving with them. Our result is quite natural and even better than one would expect: to be the second in the race! Yes! We can do it”.
We would like to wish reliability to Alexey Lukyanuk, our coach and mastermind, and his co-driver Alexey Arnautov! You have already proven that you have speed, but to achieve goals you still need a reliable team and technical base – a good car. This is what you lacked during the 2019 season and what we wish you to find to continue your sports career.
To our rivals and friends in the fight for the ERC-2 classification awards, Juan Carlos Alonso and Juan Pablo Monasterolo, we want to say that you deserve this victory like no other! Although we drove very few kilometers, struggling with you, we followed your performances during the season and sincerely wished you success. / And not some brisk Italians who don’t even have all-wheel drive :)))/
As for Mark and I, we still love motorsports, rallies and really miss the FIA European Rally Championship races atmosphere. While the priority is to study at the TRIUM Global Executive MBA, we can’t plan long weekly trips to participate in rally competitions in Europe or Latvia, but highly likely we can “drag” the races to our region! After all, winter has come in Russia, which means snow-ice sports will soon be available to all national racers.
Most likely, we will drive one or two rallies that will be held in our region as part of the Russian Cup, and we also have 10 wonderful Mazda MX5 Cup cars and ice on the lake. We will not stay without our “portion of sports adrenaline”! And if, reading these lines, you would like to join us in the championship on endurance – welcome 
My father and I participated in the VAZ-2103 car that is 11 years older than me, it was made in 1973. Despite its considerable age, the car is still young by the standards of a retro rally and falls into the Youngtimer scoring group.
It seems to me that the driver has absolutely nothing to do 🙂 – there are no speed tasks; you only have to maintain the schedule and the average speed and listen where to turn at additional competitions. That is, this story is only about the co-driver. And he is really busy – he solves the tasks from the organizers in the road book, tries to understand the schemes of the “shapes”, searches for tricky corners. The tasks were very difficult, to be honest, I only began to understand what was going on just by the end of the race. But when I figured it out – it was so cool!
By the rally results we took the eighth place in the Youngtimer category. The fact that dad and I drove the race is great! It was nice to be back at the time when I made my first steps in motorsports. As in the famous book by Alexandre Dumas – “twenty years after” in the same crew: father as a driver, and I’m with a road book. It was very nice to spend the whole day with my dad! I understand that I’m not very qualified as a co-driver but by the end of the race I was not bad 🙂
Mark got into this situation a bit earlier, I’m joining now. Except this, in September we begin training in the MBA program in London and now we have a lot of “homework” that also takes time. Work and training give us a full load, we also need time for our families, so we had to optimize our schedules with sacrifice in rally.
It’s sad that I won’t be able to go to this interesting gravel race in Poland and I won’t meet with my friends, comrades and rivals there. I wish you all sports luck and to reach the desired finish.