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Just watched the 1st round on Motors TV... nice to see so many drivers in the latest R5 cars this year.
Hope we can see this in the UK next year when the British Championship comes back !
So Spa Rally this weekend... :)
http://spa.rallyresults.be/spa-rally - Live results can be found here.
Entry list:
6 stages (2x3SS) are run on friday, first at 16h15. The first one is next to the circuit of Spa-Francorchamps, and is also using some roads around it, for me at least half of the stage is way too fast. Second stage is more technical with some gravel part, third is the well-known Clémentine. Less than half of the well-known gravel in the forest is used there, but before that part (last 3km before finish) the stage looks exciting as well, nice roads. On saturday 15 stages (3x5SS) are on the schedule. 2 stages are known from the old "Boucles de Spa", for the 3 other stages you need to go to the Condroz-region, the most Western stages of Spa Rallye are close to the most Eastern of Condroz. So a few stages (in my opinion 2 stages) are very similar to those of Rallye du Condroz. There are a few brutal gravel sections, and drivers are already fearing that punctures could play an important role in this event... Weather should be dry.
http://www.sparally.com/sites/defaul...agés%20BRC.pdf Entry list for modern cars. Most important drivers for top positions are Loix, Cherain, Tsjoen, Princen, Verschueren, Casier, Becx, Grooten with S2000/R5, with WRC we have Van Woensel, Allart and Bonjean. In GT we have Snijers, Lejeune, Vanparijs and Claerhout. This event is the first event of the Belgian 208 Rally Cup as well, so quite a few R2 cars (including Bux, De Cecco, Geusens etc).
http://www.sparally.com/sites/defaul...gés%20HBRC.pdf Entry list for historic cars. Not many drivers but some interesting names. Marc Duez is driving a BMW M3, in FINA colors! The car is similar to what he was driving some 25 years ago. Also interesting is Swiss driver Florian Gonon who is starting with an Escort MK1. Also François De Spa, man from the region, is someone to be watched. :)
https://scontent-cdg.xx.fbcdn.net/hp...5a&oe=55B7CAC4
Nice design for Bonjean's S12 WRC. :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIVp...ature=youtu.be Nice video from shakedown.
Great day to look forward to, we are going Saturday, hope there won't be too much abandons the first SS's on Friday. Very very good entry list even better than Haspengouw, I think even ERC would wish an entry like this...
I'm waiting for the first cars to arrive on the first stage, weather is awesome! I'll be posting splits again.
This is the link for the splits: https://mobile.twitter.com/search?sr...%23RallySplits
Thanks, great weekend ahead.
Mouthwatering entry for GT thread as well : 4 Porsche's entered
Loix and Princen have been on their own league so far.
Loix and Princen 20 seconds faster than the others on SS3!
And now in the dark, not everyone runs that well in the dark.
Do I remember right that Clementine is largely gravel stage?
Only last 3km or so this year.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mirek
On Haspengouw you could also see Loix was superior on first run of Zepperen, Princen made a mistake on that stage.
2 Minutes before stage starts, some 0 cars did pass, so hopefully no delay. Check my splits ;-)
Tsjoen is missing and next cars appear with very slow times. Possibly Tsjoen crashed and his car blocks the road?
EDIT: Cars now coming in normal times again.
I passed service park to go to Clémentine and Bonjean Subaru was still there, probably abandoned.
Verschueren was really slow in the dark, no confidence at all. Princen and Cherain were clearly attacking., nice!
Tsjoen retired, technical problem.
So what happened to Becx and Grooten?
Allart crashed, stage is neutralised.
I guess they're just slow in the dark, look at their times on clementine.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mirek
Where is Snijers?
Gearbox issues apparently.
Sucks, too much retirements already! Lets hope some of them will restart tomorrow as we go ;)
When I asked they had +4 minutes in the live results. Now it is fixed.Quote:
Originally Posted by HaCo
Loix onboard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEnbpAAW-WI
Good morning from the stages, we start the day with a... Delay. Still no 0 cars.
What happens again :confused:
Excellent spot at ss9:
https://flic.kr/p/ri7fL6
On ss7 junior winner from Haspengouw went off quite hard. Don't know if they continued the stage after.
Great battle between Loix and Princen :)
impressed about Princen.
Not at all unfortunately. Princen was too late at the start this morning, you need to add 1440 to his time :-( Loix should not be pushing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mirek
Are we sure the Skoda R5 will be faster than the S2000?
I bet it will.Quote:
Originally Posted by HaCo
You were standing next to me and I didn't know it. You can see my dad and a friend in red on the picture.Quote:
Originally Posted by HaCo
You're right, it was a good spot.
We were there too at ss9 :)
Back on our way home, pretty good day despite the delays and lot of retirements.
Fly, I was sitting in my chair :-)
I think the last stage we did, SS19, was on time lol
It was a great weekend, nice to see top drivers attacking! Also juniors Bucx an Dececco did a great job!
Since a lot of R5 this time retired with mechanical problems and only three finished I'd like to ask if anybody knows exactly what happened to them? Tsjoen, Casier, Verschueren, Grooten?
Damn, just reading why Verschueren and Van Parijs were excluded. Apparently they added a quite hidden checkpoint between the finish and start of 2 stages. Loix almost missed it as well, just saw the 0 passing it.
Shouldn't this be mentioned in the roadbook?
Van Woensel admits he was doing an illegal recce on ss2 to check the finish, apparently the organization added a chicane to the finish line (over a very tight bridge). So he agrees with the 3 minutes penalty, but the nominal times he got were way to high. One of the last stages he got a nominal time he got more than one minute more!
The region is awesome, but the delays and all the actions that were taken are not worth a Belgian championship :-(
Casier hit something and broke a steering arm.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mirek
Tsjoen had an off, I heard he complained about the rear end handling of his DS3, it is too loose (since Haspengouw apparently)
Verschueren excluded. But did break another drive shaft on day 1, had to do the second run of Clementine with fwd, I think he had this problem in previous rally as well.
Grooten, I heard he had a puncture, not sure.
Princen had to replace gearbox, why he got 1min40 penalty time.
Quite ok for R5 reputation ;-)
Tsjoen https://flic.kr/p/rBo5sP