Belgian Rally News

[dupanton]

Belgian Championship should be great this year, with several R5s doing a full season. Really looking forward to the first round next weekend. Following drivers should do a full (or almost) season:

Loix (Fabia S2000/R5) with support from Skoda Belgium
Cherain (DS3 R5) with support from Citroën Belgium (and Citroën Sport?)
Tsjoen (DS3 R5) with support from Citroën Belgium
Verschueren (DS3 R5)
Grootten (DS3 R5), at least first half of the season
Princen (208 R5) with support from Peugeot Belgium
Beckx (Fiesta R5)

Snijers (Porsche 997)

Allart (Fabia WRC), can't take much points for the championship with a WRC

Etc...

My prediction: close rallies but in the end, I think Loix will be champion again. Biggest threat should be Cherain and Princen. A lot will depend on the performance of the new Fabia R5.
For next weekend, I predict a Loix victory is the weather is bad. If it's mainly dry, Cherain and Princen should be very close, maybe even Van Woensel (first time with Lancer WRC) could play his role.

[HaCo]

I'm afraid Loix will take it. Cherain showed really nice speed in for example EBR last year, pitty we couldn't compare to Loix that moment.
Princen had the luxury of having a really fast car, but needed a wake up call every rally, was quite slow and made mistakes at the start of several events. But maybe, and he has proven a lot in the past, he is much better in a slower car, more confidence, more speed. In the Evo gr A he made quite some mistakes as well.
Loix will be the man to beat, whoever wins the title, it will be with proper competition this year.

Let's hope the R5 cars will be reliable!

Can't wait for the Haspengouw to start! Backpack is ready to go! :-D

[tommeke_B]

For Haspengouw Chris Van Woensel is my favourite, with so many long straights and junctions... I think there are 2 stages where he could lose some (Halle-Booienhoven a little and Zepperen some more), on the other 2 (Gelmen and Walshoutem) he should gain a lot of seconds with all the straights. I think he will make a better debut with this car than Princen did with the S12. Princen was quite disappointing last year, apart from Rallye du Condroz.

[HaCo]

Actually, if you see what Duval could do in that car in Condroz few years ago (2009), CVW has only one option: to win. Of course he needs to adapt to the car.

Don't quite understand why he switched to a superior car anyway. Is it possible that this Mitsu WRC is less expensive to run than in the mean already quite old Evo X R4?

I can understand he does it for the fun, but certainly not for competition.

[tommeke_B]

Of course that was Duval and he had the whole official MML (former works team and mechanics) around him... Also it's 6 years ago, nobody drives an S2000 of 2009 anymore. The Lancer WRC is certainly more expensive to run than Evo X R4. But probably a bit cheaper than top-S2000 and top-R5. The real expenses of these cars start to show when you go off and do some damage, so far Van Woensel rarely crashes. I think there are enough reasons to choose a Lancer WRC in stead of Evo X R4.
- More attention from people and media (even with current BRC rules)
- More fun
- Better results
- Harder to hit anything with rear wing
- Value of car will not drop like the value of Evo X R4 or an R5-car will. Older WRC cars are quite good investments. If you buy a Fiesta R5 and sell it in 2-3 years, it's old and worth maybe 60-70% of value now? If you buy an Evo X R4 it will be the same, probably worse if regulations change. I heard quite positive stories from people who bought WRC cars and could sell them with almost no loss or even small profit after some years.

[SpeedEstRacing]

my vidéo , legend boucles - Bastogne 2015: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph7_-mCnrr0

[tommeke_B]

Kris Princen tested the 208 R5 for the first time yesterday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBRm0jqRSbE

[Tom206wrc]

New WRC car for David Bonjean in the Spa Rally(so he's forfait at this week-end's Haspengouw Rally)

[MartijnS]

Yes, correct.

[RICARDO75]

Start list Rally Van Haspengouw
http://www.rallyvanhaspengouw.be/ind...ers/startlijst