Nasser Al-Attiyah – last year’s winner of the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies, as well as this season’s leader of the overall standings is opening the entry list to Columna Medica Baja Poland 2016, which consists of 43 crews. Just as in 2015 season, the driver from Qatar, will sit behind the wheel of a Toyota Hilux entered by Belgian team Overdrive Racing. The Frenchman Matthieu Baumel will be his co-driver. Al-Attiyah will come to Szczecin straight from Rio de Janeiro, where he participated in the Olympic Games taking part in the skeet competition. This time the versatile sportsman wasn’t able to repeat his success from previous Olympics in London, where he managed to grab the bronze medal.

Columna Medica Baja Poland is also the round of FIA Central European Zone Championship, Polish and Czech Championship and also Polish Cup and Baja Cup. In total, there are 121 crews at all entry lists.

During the 7th round of this year’s FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies, the organizers assigned number 102 to another Toyota crew – Marek Dąbrowski and Jacek Czachor. After the recent Hungarian Baja, the Polish squad lies 6th in the overall standings.

With the „three” meaning the number 103 we will see Krzysztof Hołowczyc, who holds the record number of five wins in Baja Poland. After the last year’s success in Szczecin, the former European rally champion announced retirement from the off-road competition, though he highlighted he would be present during his favourite cross-country rally again. The famous Hołek will traditionally sit behind the wheel of a MINI ALL4 Racing maintained by German X-raid squad. His co-driver will be Łukasz Kurzeja.

The next starting number went to veterans of the FIA World Rally Championship. Behind the wheel of a Ford F150 we will see a Czech driver Martin Prokop, who entered as many as 117 WRC rounds. Interestingly enough, his co-driver will be equally experienced Ilka Minor, who is co-piloting Henning Solberg in this year’s FIA World Rally Championship.

These are not only rally highlights in the 7th FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies entry list. Besides Prokop, Hołowczyc and Al-Attiyah, who grabbed titles in Production Car and WRC 2 series, we will also see the Spanish Xavier Pons who participated in 70 WRC rounds and co-driver Stéphane Prévot, who has 173 WRC starts in his pocket.

Among favourites to the win we shall see drivers of Toyota Hilux and MINI ALL4 Racing. The Belgian Overdrive Racing will bring 6 cars to Szczecin, while the German X-raid led by Sven Quandt will fight with 4 identical cars. Besides Hołowczyc, another driver behind the wheel of a car from Trebur will be Kuba Przygoński (starting number 118). In the cars category in total we will see 44 vehicles during the 7th round of the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies. Evenly half of the drivers who will visit Szczecin are foreigners. The entry list is concluded by Szczecin’s driver, successful also in race circuits, Klaudia Podkalicka.