Sesks and Francis win European Rally Championship round in Portugal
Latvian crew Martins Sesks and Renars Francis won the final round of the European Rally Championship in Portugal on Sunday. The result secured the championship title for their team, MRF.
Latvian rally crew — driver Martins Sesks and co-driver Renars Francis — won the seventh and final round of the European Rally Championship (ERC), the Rally of Portugal's six northern cities, on Sunday. The victory allowed their team, MRF, to secure the championship title.
The fight for the lead
Sesks and Francis compete in a Skoda Fabia RS. After the first four stages on Sunday they had dropped to second place overall, but later regained the lead.
The Latvians finished the rally by winning the final stage, beating Bulgarian driver Nikolay Gryazin, who is Russian-born and once competed with a Latvian licence, by three tenths of a second. Gryazin drove a Lancia.
Overall standings
In the overall rally results, the Sesks crew finished more than a minute ahead of Frenchman Pablo Sarrazin (Lancia). In the season standings the Sesks crew placed fifth, while Finland's Teemu Suninen became champion.
Limited participation this season
The Latvians had started only one of the previous six ERC rounds. In May in Sweden, at the Scandinavian Rally, the championship's second round, they took second place.
Sesks and Francis's 2026 international programme, alongside the World Rally Championship (WRC), included separate starts in the European championship. These are intended to build experience on different surfaces and keep up competitive rhythm between WRC rounds.
