The ceremonial start of Monbat Rally Sliven, which took place at the Hadzhi Dimitar square in the centre of the city, marked the beginning of the third round of the FIA Balkan Rally Trophy and the second round of the Bulgarian Rally Championship. 32 crews passed through the start ramp in Sliven and will take part in the forthcoming event which will be held from Thursday to Saturday.

The two-time winners of Monbat Rally Sliven Miroslav Angelov and Georgi Gadzhev (Skoda Fabia Rally2 Evo) are favourites to win after the withdrawal of Martin Surilov and Zdravko Zdravkov because of the broken engine of their Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX. Unfortunately, Enis Arif and Carmen Poenaru from Romania (Skoda Fabia Rally2) will also miss the event.

Two crews with R5 cars will try to steal the victory from Angelov and Gadzhev – Ugur Soylu and Aras Dincer from Turkey with Skoda Fabia Rally 2 and Mustafa Cakal and Ozgur Akdag also from Turkey with Hyundai i20 NG R5.

The fight in the most populated RC4 class will be fierce. 10 crews will take part in the second tier category headed by Daniel Popov and Angel Bashkehayov. The winners from the Bulgaria Rally in the 2WD category will start their second event with the new Peugeot 208 Rally4 and even have a chance for an overall podium if some of the crews in RC2 class hit troubles and the weather in Sliven Municipaliy stays warm and shiny. However rain chances for the region of the rally are particularly high for the next two days.

The route of Monbat Rally Sliven covers 170 kilometres in 11 competitive stages. Leg 1 will start in Friday with Ablanovo (19.77 km) in 17:40 local time. Itchera (17.76), Karandila (14.59 km) and the superspecial stage on the former airport “Barshen” where the service park is located will form the rest of the day.