Ahead of the Yalta Rally there had been no national flags at the top of the East European Cup standings other than Bulgarian. However none of the favourites came to the Ukrainian race. Instead did make his appearance a very strong crew of a Romanian team with Italian Marco Tempestini behind the wheel. He decided to take a strategic victory in the Cup. And it seems like it was the starting point of the Bulgarian crews' hegemony fading. And it wasn't only about the speed of Tempestini, because unfortunately he retired from the rally due to a fire in his car. But there also appeared a lot of Ukrainian flags in the standings pointing at the fact that nothing was settled down with two events of the series still to go. Moreover, both the Serbian and Novorossiysk rallies have the highest difficulty rank - 10, which almost guaranteed a hot finish to the season. The crews from Bulgaria could only hope for some fortunate results in Serbia, and taking into account that the race was also held as a round of the Bulgarian championship, their hopes could have come true. But...
