How to be fast at Rally Poland - EA SPORTS™ WRC Official Guide
October 17, 2024
ORLEN 80th Rally Poland is one of the fastest locations on the entire WRC calendar, with its long straights, wide roads, and smooth flowing turns.
To help you get a leg-up on the competition, here are some tips and tricks from our in-house professional rally driver and game designer, Jon Armstrong.
Location Overview
Poland is a high speed location, primarily consisting of smooth sandy gravel along with a few short asphalt sections.
Its wide, flat-out sections will inspire confidence when you drive high downforce cars, before tightening up into slower, more technical areas through forests.
The stages also feature many bumps, jumps, and junctions.
Tip 1: Be precise with your Steering
Due to the undulating nature of the faster road sections, it’s important to be precise with your steering inputs.
Minor adjustments in your steering will be enough to help you navigate turns at high speed, and you must remain aware of your car’s neutral steering point in order to keep the car pointed straight.
As you go over bumps and jumps, you’ll want to ensure you are properly lined up once your front wheels touch the road again; avoid dramatic steering inputs through these sections.
Tip 2: Think ahead
With Poland being such a fast rally location, the upcoming turns and obstacles will approach you much faster than usual.
Many of the long high speed sections are punctuated with heavy braking zones, where braking too late will see you fly off the road.
To counter this, keep your eyes focused far ahead and listen out for the co-driver’s Pace Notes. As soon as you hear “Caution”, “Brake”, or a low number like “1” or “2”, get ready to brake immediately.
You should also be mindful when approaching jumps. Think about how you are going to land the car before you take off into the sky, and position the car accordingly before launch.
Tip 3: Watch out for the bales
Poland’s stages feature several hay bales and other obstacles, with the intention of limiting speeds and decreasing danger in real-life.
This is also the case in-game, and you’ll find them on the insides and outside of many corners.
As they’re quite large you should be able to see them well in advance of approaching a corner, making them good visual reference points for where to brake, where to turn, or where to avoid placing your car.
Be especially cautious of bales on the insides of turns, as clipping one with your car will most surely cause you to spin to a halt.
Tip 4: Respect the different road surfaces
Poland’s stages mostly consist of light and medium gravel, however there are a few road sections where you transition to asphalt.
The change in surface type results in a change of grip, and is something to watch out for when your co-driver calls out the notes.
Although you may experience more grip on asphalt than you would on gravel, keep in mind that your car is still running on gravel-spec tyres.
You won’t have as much grip as you would on pure asphalt events like Central European Rally (where you have asphalt-spec tyres), so be careful with your braking and turning.
Tip 5: Analyse your driving on EA Racenet
EA Racenet, our official companion site, features several tools and features with which you can elevate your EA SPORTS™ WRC experience.
One particularly useful feature is our Analysis tool. You can use this to compare your best Time Trial performance with those of your friends, rivals and the game’s fastest drivers.
In addition to seeing your Time Trial ghost and the lines you took through each corner of a stage, you can also compare your throttle, brake, and handbrake inputs to other players.
This is a great way to analyse where you are losing time, and where you can potentially make up ground in your next rally.
Tip 6: Practice Makes Perfect
The age-old phrase rings true in EA SPORTS™ WRC, just as it does for rally drivers in the real-world.
The more you drive a particular stage or location, the more you’ll recognise its unique challenges and opportunities.
Time Trial is a great way to build up this experience, and combining this with Racenet analysis and the other tips in this guide will see you make rapid progress towards the podium.
With today’s tips you’re well on your way towards mastering Rally Poland, keep at it and the victories will come!
For even more rally advice check out our Ultimate Beginner’s Guide.