Rúben Rodrigues starts the 57th Azores Rally thinking “in getting the maximum of points for the championship. In this race everything will be new for us and we will be at a disadvantage compared to the other teams. We haven’t practically run with our Skoda Fabia Rally2 Evo yet. We are not going to do anything crazy, we will see, stage by stage, what we can do. The entry list is excellent and, at this stage, we still don’t know where we can be. Depending on the times we get, we will see, stage by stage, which way we want to go. Above all, we want to get to the end, because we have not been very happy in this rally, where we have retired in the last few years. This is a new era for us and we expect to find many difficulties”.
After a short participation at Rali Vieira do Minho, Rodrigues practically debuts in São Miguel with his current car. The 37-year-old driver started in rallying in 2009 with a Citroën Saxo Cup. Since then he drove cars like a Citroën C2 R2 or a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX, with which he got his first victory overall in 2014. In 2017, he moved to a Citroën DS3 R5, with which he regularly stood on the podiums of the regional championship. He dropped back slightly in the following years, in a Peugeot 208 R2, but returned in full force in 2021, when he became Azorean champion with a Citroën C3 Rally2.