Rally-eMag 033 December 2015

Issue 33, December 2015

Wales

2015-2016

valais

Plus: For My Friends

ogier for paris

Happy with the victory, but no smiles for ogier & Ingrassia

Image: Bas Romeny

mads ostberg had his final citroen outing in wales gb

Image: Bas Romeny

as always the sweet lamb stage was firm fan favourite

Image: Bas Romeny

this is going to hurt our photographer...

Image: Bas Romeny

Rally-eMag December 2015 / Contents

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Who made it?

Publisher: Rally-eMag

Words: Steven van Veenendaal, Harry van Veenendaal.

Photography: Bas Romeny, Erik van ‘t Land

Who helped?

Logo design: Minse Blom

Backcover artwork: Dam Charles

Distribution: Issuu.com

Who we thank!

PR Photography from: Peugeot Sport, Hyundai Mo-torsport, Citroen Racing, FIA ERC, Volkswagen Motorsport, M-Sport, Red Bull Media Pool.

How to reach us?

Email: [email protected]: www.rally-emag.comFacebook: www.facebook.com/emagrallyTwitter: @emagrallyIssuu: www.issuu.com/rally-emag

WRCHistory and Future2015-2016

Page 24

ERCRallye de ValaisAlpine Apotheosis

Page 30

WRCwales rally gbClouds over Wales Page 11

fmffor my friendsBas’ special snaps

Page 36

This month

Wales Rally GB / Overview

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Based in: Deeside

Date: 12-15/11/15

Number of stages: 19

Shortest stage: Chirk Castle, 2.06 km

Longest stage: Hafren, 32.14 km

Total stage distance: 312 km

Surface: Gravel

Wales rally Gb

Image: Bas Romeny

Wales Rally GB / Review

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clouds over wales

Like so many years Rally Wales GB was once again cold and wet. Dark clouds hung over the stag-es, but on Friday evening a ter-rorist attack on Paris cast some other clouds over the final rally of the 2015 WRC season. Normally Wales is a bit of a farewell party for everyone in the WRC; a meeting of friends to look back on the season and to look forward to the holiday season and the new season to come. This all changed on Friday. World Champion Sebastien Ogier was visibly touched when he said “We’re professionals and we have to continue, but there is hardly any fun in it, my thoughts are in Paris”.

Words: Harry van Veenendaal

Images: Bas Romeny


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Battle for secondEarlier that week the rally started and though the Deeside servicepark is efficient it is hardly an ap-pealing venue. It is set in an industrial estate that could be anywhere. But the reception as always is friendly and for a real rallyfan it feels like home, almost like the Paviljonki in Jyvaskyla, only that rally centre is directly next to the heart of the city. All teams were present and looking forward to the final showdown. Of course the main attrac-tion would be the battle for second place in the championships. Only four points separated Cit-roën from Hyundai. For a fairly long tome Hyun-dai had been leading Citroën but in Spain it was the French squad that took over. At Hyundai they took a firm decision and promoted Hayden Paddon to the leading team, whilst Thierry Neu-

ville joined Kevin Abbring in the second team. Looking at the current form of the Belgian this seemed like a wise decision. Mathematically M-Sport is still in the run, but even if you take into consideration that they almost compete on home soil, the 29-point gap seems a bit large to bridge for the team from Cumbria.

Shakedown scareAt shakedown we suddenly miss Andreas Mik-kelsen. The Norwegian doesn’t feel well and is even transported to Germany to see the VW team doctor. “It’s not serious the team’s spokes-man says. And indeed at the ceremonial start Mikkelsen is back again looking good. “I was not feeling 100% so I had a thorough check up, but nothing was wrong so I can start the rally. It’s a

pity I missed out on the experience of the shake-down but this shouldn’t be to big a problem. This is where I used to live, did my driving test and started my career. As such, this feels like my second home and I’m really motivated to end this season in style.” Mikkelsen’s teammates de-fended the honour of Volkswagen, by taking the fastest times during shakedown. Ogier was first and Latvala second. Though it did not bring any points yet, Meeke proved he was determined to keep his employer in the runner up spot in the manufacturer’s championship and finished in third. But Neuville, Paddon and Sordo filled the gap between Meeke and his teammate Østberg, who was ‘only’ in seventh, exactly one second behind Meeke. But in shakedown no points are awarded so let’s move on.

Paddon’s hard work this season paid off as he got to replace Thierry Neuville in the main Hyundai squad.

Flue-like symptoms almost prevented Mikkelsen from taking the start in Wales, but fortunately he got the OK from the doctors to start his ‘second home’ rally.


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As usual if the rally is there, it rains in Wales. The night before the start was no exception, it rained like the pro-verbial cats and dogs. Ogier found the situation tricky, which did not pre-vent him from being first on the open-ing test. Latvala followed closely and Meeke was third. He was lucky to es-cape disaster when he all but spun his car in a hairpin. Neuville was not so happy in that same hairpin and lost over 25 seconds getting back on track. On the next stage things changed however, Latvala ended his battle in a ditch. Meeke is on a mis-sion and ends the stage in second Mikkelsen is in third. During the next test the complete Hyundai N team is side-lined. Neuville loses a wheel af-ter an impact and Kevin Abbring has to stop his car at the roadside and, a warning sign indicating an over-heating problem lighting up his dash-board. A leak in his car’s cooling sys-tem caused the engine to overheat in such a way he can’t continue and has to retire, as the damage is already too big. At the end of the first day we find Ogier on the top of the leader board; Meeke is following him and Mikkelsen is in third.

That evening the world news also reaches Wales Rally GB. Several ter-rorist attacks in Paris cause many to die. says Ogier. “It’s hard to carry on when these kind of things are hap-pening but we are professionals, so we have to continue, but my mind is somewhere else.” So, as Ogier indi-cated, everyone continues.

Top: Ogier was fast as al-ways but the events in Paris were on his mind and took away all joy from the event.

Middle: Kris Meeke en-tertained the crowds and finished his season in style with second place.

Bottom: Another event Thierry Neuville would rather forget, first he spun, then he lost a wheel.

Marathon dayThough the rain was absent during the early stages of Saturday, the over-night rain had soaked the stages, so they were still muddy and unpredicta-bly slippery. Thierry Neuville charged into the again rain soaked forest and achieves two scratch times. At the Dyfnant stage however his luck ran out on him again. He rolled his car and blocked the road, the car lying on its roof. Ogier had to fully stop, as he simply couldn’t pass the stricken Hyundai. Later on the rally officials looked at his onboards and could determine how long he was stopped by the incident, so in the end he was still fastest on that stage. Jari-Matti Latvala did not make it to the end of the stage either. He was stopped by a mechanical issue in the powertrain and was forced to retire for the day. So at the end of the day we saw Ogier leading the rally, Meeke in a solid second place and Mikkelsen in third. Østberg and Sordo completed the top five.

Not Tänak’s day On the first test of the last day Ott Tänak climbed the leaderboard and settled in fourth overall. But one stage further his season was over. He went slightly wide and found a rock that broke the wishbone of his Fiësta. Game over! After a year of ups and downs he again got stuck with zero points. Jari Matti Latvala firmly se-cured his runners up position in the championship by winning the Power-Stage. Mikkelsen was second there and the last PowerStagePoint of 2015 went to Robert Kubica. That was it for Wales 2015. Ogier was not on top of the VW at stage end. Instead he wrapped a French flag over his wind-screen and was mainly silent. At the podium ceremony it was not different. No champagne, no victory dance just the whole WRC fraternity together at the finish podium bowing there heads in silence in honour of the victims of several brutal attacks in the streets of Paris. Next year they will compete again, now they just seemed to say “there are more imported things than racing around to see who is the fast-est. It was impressive to see, but as everyone knows: Live goes on and we will continue fighting each other but at least we don’t do it with bombs and guns.”

Top: Just when Tanak thought he was get-ting back in the groove and moved up into fourth, he went off, broke a wishbone and ended his season in dispair.

Bottom: Ogier finished his season in style, racking up win number eight.

Round-upWales Rally GB / Round-up

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Again Volkswagen showed who was the strongest. And every year they seem to grow. Other teams simply don’t have the answer. This rally the circum-stances were different and win-ner Ogier preferred to dedicate his win to the victims of the at-tacks.

Fot Jari-Matti Latvala it again was not the event he wanted. He started to almost match but the went of and landed in a ditch that was too deep to get out of. The next day a technical glitch sidelined him. To salvage the day he wanted to perform on Sunday. He dis so by win-ning all stages, including the

Powerstage. It was not enough to make his season, the one he wanted. But hey let’s not forget he is still behind Ogier but who isn’t. And being second in the championship is not nothing, but I’m sure the Finn will not agree with me.

For Andreas Mikkelsen Wales had a strange beginning, even making it uncertain if he could start at all. But after his health had been thoroughly checked it was clear he could start without any problem. He had to adjust for a moment, having missed shakedown, but soon found his rhythm again earning him the last step on the podium.

Citroën Total Abu Dhabi World RallyteamVolkswagen MotorsportKris Meeke had two missions in Wales. First to finish high enough to hand some manufacturer’s points to his employer so that in turn they could hold on to second spot in the championship. His sec-ond mission of course was to do that in such a way that he could safe a seat in the coming WRC season(s). He did achieve the first goal, but he was to wait a little bit longer to know whether that was enough to secure his seat.

For Mads Østberg things did not differ very much. At that time it was not even clear whether Citroën would have a WRC future, so for the Norwegian the same applied. He made it to the end but not with-out some mishaps. The most im-

portant one being his car was not waterproof. Don’t forget we’re in Wales, meaning there was plenty of water to gush through the hole in Østberg’s car. He now holds a full licence in mopping floors but his seventh spot was not what he initially aimed for, although it was enough for the manufacturer’s ambitions of his employer but he was not satisfied,

Wales is friendly to no one but suffering from flue doesn’t make things easier and Stéphane Lefebvre just had that problem. But he is still young and can definitely use the experience if he will come back to WRC next year. On top of that an eith place is not bad at all.

The Korean team still hoped to get back in second place and took a desperate measure by demoting Neuville who was ill at ease this year. Rising star Hayden Paddon had to do the trick. Not an easy task as became clear quite fast.

But it was Sordo who started best of the Hyundai’s. He had a real fight with his rivals at Citroën and was in fourth when he got problems with his gearbox. Due to this he stalled his engine in a hairpin. To compensate for his loss he then started to really push and collided into a bank. But the he was helped again by Østberg’s problems. When Ott Tänak was stopped on Sunday he could relax and bring home some points for Hyundai. It was not enough though. Hayden Paddon did well but had some difficulties adapt-ing to the treacherous con-ditions. Or as he said himself: “These Welsh stages have been hard to read in terms of the grip levels and we’ve worked hard to improve from one day to the next.” Apparently he succeed-ed in doing that because where others went off, got punctures, or were bothered in other ways he continued to build on his confidence and when Tänak went off he inherited 5th place, right on target. Well not entirely as Paddon added. “It’s been a difficult weekend but we got a good top-five result at the end. We knew heading into the final day that it would be difficult to

take second place off Citroën and so it proved to be”.

The Hyundai N team cannot be happy. Again Thierry Neuville proved he can be fast with two scratch times on the opening stages on Saturday, but unfortunately his other achievements in Wales reflected his near disastrous season. Already on the

first stage he had a big spin and some stages later he lost a wheel. The next day started well but then he was caught out by a lefthander, running wide he hit a pile of wood and rolled his car blocking the road and bending his roll cage. That was it for Thierry Neuville; we hope to see him in better shape next year!

For Kevin Abbring we hope for a bit more luck next year. His Wales presence was rather short. Not far from the end of Myherin he parked

his car alongside the road a red alert light blinking. His water temperature was too high and unfortunately this meant the end of his rally. Abbring explained what happened: “The engine had overheated too much. It’s a disappointing end to the sea-son but I feel that I have learned a huge amount in our WRC programme with Hyundai Motorsport and this will provide a very strong platform for the future. Thanks to the team on be-half of myself and Seb for the opportunity.”

Hyundai Shell World Rally Team

Wales Rally GB / Round-up

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M-Sport World Rally Team

Malcolm Wilson was not too happy with the performance of his team. Of course Evans’s result was an exception to that rule but in general his drivers did not bring what he wanted. He keeps on defending them but the future will learn what his real feeling is. Wales was a kind of home event for the team and so he really wanted to shine. Ott Tänak seemed to deliver. Like a lot of others he had to adapt to the treacher-ous conditions but after some good times he was fourth, only to throw it all away on Sunday. An ever-present hidden rock broke his rear left wheel. He was out of the rally and as became clear after the rally out of the team as well.

Elfyn Evans’s quest more or less stopped on stage four when a puncture threw him out of contention. He fought back with quite a few de-cent times but his sixth place was a bit of a lack lustre performance for a man of his stature on his own home soil.

Jippocar Czech Na-tional Team Martin Prokop Wales will remember Wales 2015 by the way he left it. It was not even on the stage. He took a wrong turn after stage 12. Hayden Paddon had made the same mistake. After he found out he turned around, only to find Martin Prokop in his way. The two cars couldn’t stop in time and the collision that followed caused Prokop’s radiator to break. Though Paddon continued, he Czech stranded

there. He restarted there but withdrew the next day. We hope to see him back but it seems the Czech lost some of his interest as he will start in Le Dakar and nothing solid yet on his WRC plans for 2016. At least the privateer championship he so much wanted will not be there in 2016.

RK World Rallyteam Wales again was a real Kubica rally for Robert Kubica, Both techni-

cal and driving prob-lems were there and also a stellar per-formance on some stages, including the Powerstage where he grabbed an ex-tra point by finish-ing it in third. But one thing you can say about the Pole he never ever gives up. In Wales this re-sulted in ninth place. We definitely hope to see him back in WRC next year.

Fuckmatié World Rallyteam After Finland this was Lorenzo Bertelli’s second point of the season. He steered his Ford Fiesta RS

past all the dangers of this event and ended in the points so he has something to show his family who are funding his WRC adventures. At the exact moment new deals for next season are being discussed this was not a bad time to prove a point.

Wales Rally GB / Results

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Overall final classification

1. Ogier / Ingrassia Volkswagen Polo R WRC 3:03:02.02. Meeke / Nagle Citroën DS 3 WRC +26.03. Mikkelsen / Floene Volkswagen Polo R WRC +36.24. Sordo / Marti Hyundai i20 WRC +2:51.35. Paddon / Kennard Hyundai i20 WRC +3:00.56. Evans / Barritt Ford Fista RS WRC +3:09.17. Østberg / Andersson Citroën DS 3 WRC +4:28.48. Lefebvre / Prévot Citroën DS 3 WRC +5:38.49. Kubica / Szczepaniak Ford Fiesta RS WRC +6:22.710. Bertelli / Granai Ford Fiesta RS WRC +8:05.0

2015 FIA WRCManufacturers’ Standings

1. Volkswagen Motorsport 4132. Citroën Total Abu Dhabi WRT 2303. Hyundai Shell WRT 2244. M-Sport WRT 1815. Volkswagen Motorsport II 1316. Hyundai Motorsport N 677. Jipocar Czech National Team 538. Fuckmatié WRT SRL 13

Wales Rally GB / Standings

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2015 FIA WRCDrivers’ Standings1. Sébastien Ogier 263 2. Jari-Matti Latvala 1833. Andreas Mikkelsen 1714. Mads Østberg 1165. Kris Meeke 1126. Thierry Neuville 907. Elfyn Evans 898. Dani Sordo 899. Hayden Paddon 8410. Ott Tänak 63

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Feature / History and Future

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History and future

The 2015 WRC season is over, time to look back at the season that was and ahead at what the teams have in store for the 2016 season.

Volkswagen Motorsport At Volkswagen Headquarters they have a big problem. It’s all over the news that emission values in the Volkswagen brochures have not been completely honest. So what is new? Whoever reached the brochure value when driving any make of car? Well Volkswagen has added something by including special software that can detect testing circum-stances. The big fear among rally fans of course was: Will this affect Volkswagen’s presence in WRC? Well if we may believe Jost Capito (and most of the time we do) the WRC programme is safe. Contracts sealed and signed thorough-ly. Only future will tell but at least Volkswagen’s exploits in the WRC have been very convincing and can show the tech-nical competence of the German car builder. So for the time being we expect VW to be present in the coming years. The 2015 season was excellent though not perfect, as they did not win Argentina. A car from Wolfsburg has won all other rallies. Need we say more?

2016 line-upNever change a wining team Capito must have thought, so Ogier, Latvala and Mikkelsen will be back. The last one will have a new co-driver as Ola Fløene went to Mads Østberg. Anders Jaeger replaced him. During tests Jaeger already has driven with his fellow Norwegian and it was agreed Jaeger would come to Mikkelsen in 2017. But Ola Fløene wanted job security lasting a bit longer and decided to leave one year earlier, making place for Jaeger. Anders Jaeger had been driving with Ole Christian Velby in the 2015 Junior WRC. The hot seats next to Ogier and Latvala will as always be occupied by Julien Ingrassia and Miikka Anttila.

Words: Harry van Veenendaal

Images: Bas Romeny, PR

When you win (almost) everything, why change anything?


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Citroën Total Abu Dhabi World Rallyteam

All year long it has been uncertain if Citroen would come back in rallying. The French carmaker had to decide between WRC and WTCC. As the competition in the touring car championship was not too big they had the choice between winning everything there or fighting Volkswagen in the WRC. They eventually choose to do just that. They will be challeng-ing the German rival as from 2017. But in 2016 they will have a kind of sabbatical. While developing a new car they will not officially compete in the WRC, so no jobs for Østberg and Meeke in 2015. Only moments after this decision was communicated, we heard where Østberg would go and a bit later we learned the news of a three-year contract for Kris Meeke. In 2017 and 2018 he will drive a brand new Citroën WRC. His main duties for 2016 will be to build and develop this car. In this way the

Northern Irishman gets the unique chance to develop a completely new car according to his own wishes. In 2016 he will drive a ‘private’ programme, his first rally being the Monte. So a well deserved deal for Meeke. A deal he wanted very much. Rumours had it he was also de-sired by Tommi Mäkinen’s Toyota team but he choose for the French!

2016 line-upUnder the banner of the Abu Dhabi World Rallyteam we will see four drivers for a selected number of events. Apart from Meeke, this will be Stephan Lefebvre Craig Breen and Khalid Al Qassimi. In Monte Carlo we will see Meeke and Lefebvre, In Sweden, Meeke, Breen and Al Qassimi. For the rest of the season nothing has been decided yet.

Kris Meeke will again spearhead the (unofficial) Citroen attack. This year he’ll be partnered with Stephane Lefebvre, Craig Breen and Khalid Al-Qassimi, in varying lineups.


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Hyundai Motorsport In their second year the Korean team has been fighting for second place nearly all season. In the end they did not make it and that was mainly due to the current form (or lack of it) of Thierry Neuville. For some pecu-liar reason he couldn’t find the confidence. At times he was his usual (fast) self, but too often he went off one way or another. It’s a well-known secret Neuville was not pleased by the fact that the new evolution of the i20 was not ready in 2015 as planned. Whether this was the reason can only be told after thorough psychological research and that is not something we can do at Rally-eMag. Fact remains that at crucial moments the Belgian did not deliver. Still he gathered 90 points and a sixth place in the driver’s championship. This being proof of the fact that Neuville is still a force to be reckoned with.

Dani Sordo performed as expected and especially in the second half of the season gathered the necessary points. He shares seventh and eighth place with Elfyn Evans. Big revelation of the season was Hayden Paddon. In Sardinia he shined with an ex-cellent second place in a very hard rally. In the rest of the season he gathered quite a few more points and even was promoted to the first team. This happened in Austral-ia, where he replaced Sordo and in Wales where Neuville had to bow his head. In both cases he out performed the driver he re-placed by ending fifth.

In five rallies Kevin Abbring was part of the line up for Hyundai. In Sweden he re-placed Dani Sordo who was injured during a training accident on his mountain bike.

He was called at very short notice but did well, considering it was his first competitive outing in a fully-fledged World Rally Car. In Sweden he finished just outside the points but did finish. His next outing as planned, was Poland. Then he went to Germany and Corsica and finally to Wales. In general you could say he was adapting quite well to the completely new situation. In France he was even very close to the top when he crashed out, proving he has the speed. But as he said his biggest problem is to translate the speed of a modern World Rally Car into good pacenotes. “An R5 is no comparison,” he often said. “But I’ve learned a lot,” he added quickly when we asked him.

2016 line-upIn early December Hyundai presented its new i20 and at the same time introduced the new team members. No surprise here: Neuville, Sordo and Paddon were handed a full programme. However when number one drivers had to be assigned it was Sordo who got this title. In principle this does not make much difference as all three drivers will compete a complete programme but it is a bit of a psychological blow to Neuville. Abbring will be test pilot again; he will be re-sponsible for the further development of the 2016 car as well as the development of the 2017 car. The final development of the R5 version will be on his plate too. So he will be behind the wheel of a Hyundai quite often. Competitively nothing is clear yet. “He will have selected outings,” said team principal Michel Nandan. “But it depends on his test-ing programme and the availability of chas-sis. But he will definitely compete for us in 2016, also because we want him to show-case our new R5.


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M-Sport World Rally TeamMalcolm Wilson’s displeasure with his team’s performance in 2015 was a well known secret, yet we did not expect him to dismiss both of his 2015 drivers. But that is what actually happened. In an early December announcement the team informed us that Mads Østberg would be his lead driver. That was not too big a surprise. Østberg’s seat at Citroën was jeopardised by the team’s announcement it would take a sabbati-cal in 2016. Østberg initially took his co-driver Jonas Andersson with him. Andersson however changed seats called by EVEN management, a Norwegian stable of drivers and co- drivers that was looking for a new co-driver for Pontus Tideman. For Østberg the switch came as a com-plete surprise. The pre event tests for Monte Carlo now changed into a headhunting test for a new co driver. Among the people evaluated was ex- Henning Solberg co Ilka Minor, but eventually it was Ola Fløene who preferred to have a somewhat longer-term engagement with Østberg than the one-year contract he still had with Andreas Mikkelsen.

The biggest surprise in the M-Sport team was the engagement with Eric Camilli. The young French driver has a limited experience in WRC but had among other things been quite busy in a Fiesta R5 during Rally Wales GB. Then all of the sudden we saw a brief but praising mention of a certain Camilli who was “continuing to perform strongly”. Malcolm was quite happy to have been able to lure the young Frenchman to his team, stating: “Eric’s WRC experience is limited, but I truly believe that he has

all the makings of a future world champion”. Wilson has a fine nose for young talent so we are quite curious to see the development of Camilli. Of course we already saw his name when he was elected by Toyota in their young drivers programme but as Malcolm Wilson said it, “we have been able to persuade him to come to us. When we talked to Toyota, they understood…”

One thing however seemed to be slightly worrying. At the original date teams had to be registered at FIA, M-Sport was not on the list of con-firmed entries. We knew that Volkswagen and Hyundai were on this list, but until the beginning of January nothing else was certain. Citroën will not be a manufacturer in 2016. But at last a new list was published and it did include M-Sport So notwithstanding the complaints from all manu-facturers and especially M-Sport, about the rising costs, as there will be 14 events in the 2016 WRC season, Malcolm Wilson apparently found a budget. So M-Sport did commit to a full 2016 season.

What about Elfyn Evans and Ott Tänak?‘Elfyn Evans did a good job and we will definitely see him back on the stages”, said Malcolm Wilson. And he kept his word as we see the young Welshman in an R5 Fiesta on the entrant’s list of the Rallye Monte Carlo. For the time being he will be working on the further development of M-Sports Fiesta R5.


Drive DMack World Rally Team The other ex-M-Sport driver Ott Tanak left M-Sport for the newly founded Drive D Mack World Rally Team. Dick Cormack managing director of the tyre manufacturer already expressed his desire to start in WRC and in es-tablishing this team he managed to do just that. So in 2016 we will see the team on most of the rounds of the championship with Ott Tanak behind the wheel of a Fiesta WRC.

Jippocar Czech National Team It is very quiet around Martin Prokop’s WRC plans. We do see him on he entry list of Le Dakar, but there is no mention what so ever about his plans to continue. Maybe he is waiting for the Privateer championship he so desperately wants or maybe he lost interest because this championship is nowhere near in sight.

RK World Rallyteam Rumours enough around Robert Kubica. But only one thing is clear and that is that he is on the entry list of Rallye Monte Carlo. His entry shows a Fiesta WRC as his car. Nothing else can now be said about his plans. Just one quote of the Polish driver after Rally Wales GB: “This would be the worst time to leave WRC!” Well we’ll wait and see.

Fuckmatié World Rallyteam It’s not sure yet if the team name will be the same but Lorenzo Bertelli will be back. This time he will not be managing his own team. He left that in the able hands of M-Sport. He will bring some of his own engineers but the overall management will be by M-Sport, making it possible for the Ital-ian to focus on his driving. He will have a comprehensive programme not including one or two long haul events.

Same car, different looks. The new Drive DMack World Rally Team with Ott Tanak behind the wheel uses a Ford Fiesta WRC, as does Robert Kubica, at least for the open-ing round in Monte Carlo that is. Once again M-Sport has managed to completely dominate the privateer market as Lorenzo Bertelli will also use a Fiesta for his assault.

Rallye du Valais / Overview

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Based in: Sion

Date: 29-31/10/15

Number of stages: 17

Shortest stage: Caserne, 6.18 km

Longest stage: Col des Planches, 25.15 km

Total stage distance: 234 km

Surface: Asphalt

rallye du valais

Image: FIA ERC

Rallye du Valais / Review

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Alpine apotheosis

Despite the overall ERC title already being decided, there was still plenty of excitement at the final round of the ERC. Newly crowned champion Ka-jetanowicz decided to skip the event, but Craig Breen was out to finish his up and down season on a high. His main opposition would come in the form of Bryan Bouffier, Alexey Lukyanuk and local aces like Olivier Burri. Meanwhile Junior ERC champion Emil Bergkvist got a chance to tussle with the big boys in a Peugeot 208 T16.

Words: Steven van Veenendaal

Images: FIA ERC


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A bit of everythingThe Rallye International du Valais, as it is fully called, was not supposed to be part of the ERC this season. Originally the season finale was scheduled to run at the Mediterranean island of Corsica. However the Alsace based French round of the WRC developed financial difficulties when several key sponsors withdrew their sup-port and Corsica was called upon to take its slot in the WRC calendar. Events can’t be part of the ERC and WRC simultaneously and as such, it was removed from the ERC calendar. ERC Promoter Jean-Baptiste Ley had mixed feelings about the situation: ‘On one side I am disappointed to see such an iconic event go from our calendar but on the other hand it is a compliment because it

shows how high the quality of our events is.’

Asphalt mountain roads make up most of the route, with some very tricky gravel sections that break the asphalt rhythm. The cars are set up for asphalt, making the gravelly bits extra tricky. Not that the asphalt itself is easy to navigate. At this time of year the high altitude of the rally means there is a very good chance of snowy and icy patches on the mostly asphalt, meaning that an-yone can be caught out, at any time.

I doesn’t take longThe rally kicked off on Thursday with a short loop of three stages totaling nearly 33 kilometers. Bryan Bouffier never made it past the first stage

though. After having set the second fastest time on the qualifying stage the Frenchman was look-ing forward to a good event but it all ended in a fast right hand corner. His Peugeot drifted wide hitting a wall in the process. The collision ripped his left front wheel and damaged the brake disc, ending his rally immediately. Craig Breen took a steady approach to the opening stages as he lost his chances of outright victory last year with a puncture. He was perfect through the first three stages and opened a lead over eight-time win-ner Olivier Burri in his Citroen DS3 RRC. Anoth-er one taking a cautious approach was Alexey Lukyanuk. A bit uncharacteristic as the Russian usually adopts a flat-out strategy, but it paid off with third place overnight.

Quick on the Qualifying stage, but quick out of the event once the rally started was Bryan Bouffier

Craig Breen jumped into an early lead that he held until after the final stage..


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Allez Francois The stages in Valais are tight, twisty, slippery and go up and down the mountains. Not the type of road you would expect the big powerful Porsche 997, running in the R-GT class, to succeed. Nonetheless Francois Delecour proofed the car was up to the challenge. He took the car to fourth at the end of the sec-ond day but knew he would be no match for the four-wheel drive cars on the final day with many slippery gravel sections. De-spite losing some time indeed, he clung on to a sensational fifth place. On stage fifteen though a radiator leak caused the smile to disappear from his face, He managed to complete the stage but got little further due to over-heating issues.

Two tyresRallying is a team sport and the team doesn’t just consist of the driver and co-driver, the whole service crew and logistics be-hind it make a difference as well. Although often unheralded,

these guys are quite often actual heroes themselves, salvaging every last bit of performance and drivability from cars that have sometimes been turned to scrap by their drivers. Unfortunately for Craig Breen, this part of the team can from time to time also make a mistake. ERC Regulations state that any team can use up to 18 tyres per rally and Breen had ac-cidentally used 20. The result? A two-minute penalty that stripped Breen of a well deserved victory. The Irishman had been flawless and dominated the event but this ‘technicality’ dropped him down to second and handed victory to Alexey Lukyanuk. The Russian too had a very strong outing and despite his limited asphalt expe-rience performed great. He dom-inated the final day of the event to overhaul local hero Burri, claim-ing five stage wins in the pro-cess. Burri finished third overall ahead of Junior ERC champion Emil Bergkvist who took a steady approach to his first R5 outing but impressed with his consist-ent performance.

Top to bottom:Delecour pushed his Porsche to the limit.Burri was a strong third in his home event.Lukyanuk took a surprise win after Breen was given a time penalty.

Rallye du Valais / Results

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Overall final classification

1. Lukyanuk – Arnautov Ford Fiesta R5 2:32.53,02. Breen – Martin Peugeot 208 T16 +1.20,63. Burri – Klinger Citroen DS3 RRC +1.40,24. Bergkvist – Sjoberg Peugeot 208 T16 +2.34,75. Gonon – Guex Peugeot 207 S2000 +2.47,36. Gryazin – Fedorov Skoda Fabia R5 +4.34,37. Perroud – Beuret Ford Fiesta R5 +6.41,68. Carron – Revaz Ford Fiesta R5 +8.56,39. della Casa – Pozzi Citroën DS3 R5 +10.39,410. Botka – Szeles Mitsubishi Lancer +10.42,2

2015 FIA ERC Drivers Standings

1. Kajetan Kajetanowicz Ford Fiesta R5 230 pts2. Craig Breen Peugeot 208 T16 185 pts3. Alexey Lukyanuk Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X 157 pts4. Robert Consani Citroën DS3 R5 79 pts5. Jaromir Tarabus Skoda Fabia S2000 75 pts6. Bruno Magalhães Peugeot 208 T16 68 pts7. Dominykas Butvilas Subaru Impreza WRX STi 45 pts8. Siim Plangi Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX 43 pts9. Jan Kopecky Skoda Fabia R5 36 pts10. Freddy Loix Skoda Fabia R5 35 pts

Rallye du Valais / Standings

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Rally-eMag / For My Friends

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for my friendsWhen travelling the world to snap the WRC, our photographer Bas Romeny comes across many interesting scenes, both rally re-lated and not-so rally related. Here are his finds from Wales.

John Millington retires after many good years at Ford. Pic taken at the Ford hospitality were a hilarious slide show was given about his life.We will miss him.

New job for Elfyn? As-sisting Rally Cars?

Yes, this is Wales!

At service there was a Colin McRae exhibition. This was one of the say-ings.

And his daddy Jimmy McRae still drives rally! In a Chevette v8..

Yes it was cold!

I have never seen such a long licence plate ever. Not British, not Japanese..On their Yaris..

A Japanese privateer shipped his Toyota Yaris to Wales in a container.

I was invited for coffee at their hospitality/garage unit. I admire their spirit!

Ciao Bas

Well, after all their problems, VW is still in the race for next year!And Citroen bailed out for 2016..

see you next time...

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Rally-eMag 033 December 2015