Belgian Rally News

[dupanton]

Entrylist for Spa Rally, 2nd round of Belgian Rally championship:
http://sparally.com/sites/default/fi...ntry%20BRC.pdf

A couple of stages are on the Spa circuit and serviceroads. Tomorrow there are 5 stages, on Saturday another 10.

[Mirek]

Any working live timing link? Thanks

[Adler]

Any working live timing link? Thanks

https://www.ewrc-results.com/results...2018/?s=173982

[Mirek]

Guys, if You have any photos of No.21 please post them. It's the very first rally ever for Erik Cais. Thank You

[PLuto]

Any working live timing link? Thanks

http://spa.liverally.be:8080/spa2018...alList.jsp?r=1

[Mirek]

http://spa.liverally.be:8080/spa2018...alList.jsp?r=1

Exactly this link didn't work when I asked

[mousti]

He did good!

Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-G935F met Tapatalk

[mas-racing]

[mas-racing]

[PLuto]

Last weekend I was on Herock Spa Rally, for first time on rally in Belgium out of Ypres (where I was 10x or 11x, I think). I would like to share my opinions about that rally. As I was there with young czech driver, first step was communication with organiser. Despite everything was only in french and dutch, everything worked well, communication with organiser was great. With this I would like to thank Dupanton for big help, especially with translations.

Base of the rally was on the parking next to Spa-Francorchamps circuit. Nice place, only quite muddy with water due to the weather, but thats the situation. Especially first day evening the access to service area from north was closed by special stage, so only chance to leave that area was through small tunnel, so bigger cars like vans had no chance. And people also as this tunnel was only for cars... Special stages around Spa are really beautiful and demanding. There was lot of special stages going on circuit or small service roads - from my point of view it was too much, most of them were for more laps and there were some problems with catching slower cars etc. Fernemont was very fast on that stages and that was key success (together with punctures of Princen and De Mevius) to win.

I was really disappointed with the situation regarding recce. Originally there is recce on Saturday and Sunday one weekend before. As we were going so far, we have asked for excuse to do it on Wednesday instead. I was very surprised how many crews were doing illegal recce during that day, we have seen many cars on both ways going through the stages many, many times. And they were not covering it, they were using regular pacenotes, same car for recce etc. As I dont know so many belgian drivers, I have recognized Melissa, but there was much more crews. And organisers were in same time preparing the stages and this drivers were going normally around them...

Interesting situation was also, that parc ferme (also for each regouping) and podium was in Spa, 11 km from service. So crews were going many times to Spa, I think 7-8 times they were going through podium. There were very short times for liaison, so lot of crews were going faster on liaison than on stages. Also when SS 3 was cancelled and crews should go alternative route, roadbook was not so precise and showed only a map, so most of the crews were lost and was forced to use GPS in their mobiles to reach the service.

I was also surprised how time controls were working, especially around regrouping, but also in some other parts. You can arrive few minutes earlier or few minuters later, they will write you "correct" time to your time control and you have no penalty...

Also starting to circuit stages was crazy, there was one timekeeper showing on hands one minute intervals and another marshall close to the road with RED FLAG noticing, if the road is clear. How this can happen? Red flag in rallying actually means cancelled stage, so it should be easy for the crews to see that flag and stop the stage. But crews were used to this and absolutely ignore him. But this two marshalls were not so much synchronised, few times I have seen it was close to crash. I was quite surprised that there is no GPS tracking mandatory in Belgium, which is standard in most of the championships this year. I have also didnt found official noticeboard, only on internet. So for digging starting times to first leg I have used usual step - was going to TC 0 and waited when timekeeper will receive his start list. Funny was in second leg, when my crew started earlier than was on start list, timekeeper asked them to go earlier as some of cars in front of them didnt started...

Safety is usual problem in Belgium, as I have heard. I know that Ypres is different, more strict. Here people can be almost everywhere, marshalls quiet and working precisely only on some places. I have seen many photographers making pictures of playing with mobile than watching what is happening on stage. In lot of situations people were standing on very bad places.

Regarding the crews, the best one was Kris Princen, quite slower on circuit stages, but he should win without problems (if no puncture). Then there was Ghislain de Mevius and Fernemont, who was biggest surprise for me. He was really fast, especially on circuit stages, but also fast on normal stages. Other from the top didnt impressed so much. Patrick Snijers with Porsche was great, sound of his car on the circuit stages was amazing and he did exactly what is necessary with that car. I was quite disappointed by the R2 drivers. The best was without any doubts Gregoire Munster, with almost no experience with R2 car he was really good, precise in driving, not so many mistakes. Another noticeable was younger Dilley with Fiesta R2T, he was fast, but all the time too much aggressive and making so many mistakes, especially when the event was going to the finish. Rest of R2 was nothing special... Special notice should be for Daco with historic Escort, nice to watch and also setting good times.