Dream Team Ukraine enters IRC with Ari Vatanen

First rally of the new IRC season will see a debut of the new team, coached by former World Champion Ari Vatanen and featuring Ford Fiestas S2000.

Named Dream Team Ukraine new squad will take part in all events this year, first of which is Sata Rallye Acores this weekend. In June original two car team will be joined by third car, driven by Vitaliy Pushkar.

Dream Team Ukraine, which has appointed former world champion and rallying legend Ari Vatanen as its team coach, will enter two M-Sport Ford Fiesta Super 2000s on all 13 rounds of the IRC for Oleksiy Tamrazov and Oleksandr Saliuk Jr.

A third car, a production-based machine, will be entered for rising star Vitaliy Pushkar from June’s Canon Mecsek Rallye.

Dream Team Ukraine, which was launched in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv last week, was created by Evgeniy Chervonenko, a former USSR rally champion and the driving force behind the Prime Yalta Rally, and Tamrazov.

The Prime Yalta Rally, meanwhile, counts as round 10 of 13 of the IRC and takes place from 15/16 September in the Black Sea city of Yalta.

In the meantime, IRC crews and teams started their racing week by taking part in tree-planting ceremony. All crews were invited to plant a tree in Pinhal da Paz, a short journey from the event base in Ponta Delgada following the opening day of reconnaissance on Tuesday. It is part of the Government Forest Department’s Forest Support World Year sustainability campaign.