RPF has taken car of Thomas Martens Renault Clio Rally4 in Finnish Rally Championship in 2024. Jarkko has coached Thomas for years already and in 2024 our target was to get a lot of training kilometers. We selected Finnish Championship as training playground as roads are really fast and demanding and events are well organized. It is also a fact, that if driver can make good pace notes for Finnish winding roads, it is easier to make notes for any other terrain.
We set a target for Thomas before the season, that he should be on the podium and fight for the win during summer season events. We also set time target, that he should not lose for winner more than +0,5sec/ km. Thomas could reach this target every now and then already in June event, but not consistantly on every stage.
In August we had Future SM-Lahti rally which is really high speed event on good surface gravel roads. Thomas drove whole rally flat out and set some fastest time and he was able to be fast in the dark as well. At the end of the rally Thomas and Eddy Smeets were 3rd in class losing only +0,26 sec/km for winner Tuukka Kauppinen. Result was much appreciated as it came by driving and not by others problems.
"I know Thomas is really good driver and I have been waiting for this result for a while. It is just a cold fact, that good results come by driving more and having more seat time. Thomas and Eddy did WRC Latvia and WRC Finland during the summer and clearly speed went automatically up. Thomas has been in top speed for a long time on slow and technical stages, but high speed section with crests have been a small issue. Now we had a good shakedown training session and Thomas was able to improve his feet work for fast corners." - Jarkko Miettinen
