Belgian Rally News

[jacko]

Kevin Demaerschalk in a Citroën C3 R5 in the last four rounds of the Belgian rally championship (Ypres, Omlppo Vlaanderen, East Belgian and Condroz).

[mousti]

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.

Welcome to Wallonie Pluto

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[mas-racing]

[mas-racing]

[tommeke_B]

Yesterday the TAC Rally in Tielt was being held, 3rd round of the Belgian championship. Quite good startlist, 12 R5 cars (of which 8 were Fabia), 10 Porsche GT3's and quite a lot of variety further in the field with R2's, N4's, historic cars and the BMW M-Cup. Dry weather which meant good conditions for the GT cars. Overall most drivers seemed to be pushing hard, which resulted in quite a lot of crashes. Results can be found here: http://www.tac-results.be/ Overall the battle for the first 2 places wasn't very interesting. Princen had the updated engine on his Fabia R5, and was much quicker than Verschueren, especially in the first loop when Verschueren didn't seem as confident as Princen was. Behind those two there was a big gap... Bédoret finished third on his first outing with a Skoda Fabia R5, his times were improving a lot throughout the day, he certainly is a driver to keep an eye on in the future. In GT there was a nice competition between Timothy Vanparijs, Gunther Monnens and Kevin Abbring. After the first loop of 4 stages, all 3 were within 4 seconds. After that Vanparijs got a puncture and Abbring had mechanical issues (clutch, but replacement took too long so he was out of the rally), and Monnens won the category. Van Woensel had issues very early, and Snijers crashed on the third stage already. In R2 Reynvoet was the quickest all day, but he crashed on the penultimate stage. Gilles Pyck, a young driver who did his first national event, won the class then. Historic class was won by Paul Lietaer, who was driving a Manta 400 Gr.B for the first time in many years, it is the same car he was driving more than 30 years ago.

A few photos I made:

Princen - Eelbode, winners


Snijers - Bouchat, crash on SS3


Abbring - Vandeputte, retired


Pyck - Mourisse, winners in R2 and Junior category


Monnens - Debyser, winners in RGT


A few more photos for those who are interested: https://www.facebook.com/pg/rallyima...37543579590849

[mas-racing]

[Jarek Z]

Good entry list in Rallye de Wallonie, which will be held on April 27/28/29. 16 R5 cars and 7 RGT machines look quite impressive. I think that from top drivers only Kris Princen is missing:
https://www.rallye054.be/wp-content/...-rallye054.pdf

[dupanton]

Verschueren has to win this one to stay in the fight for the title. Princen already won 2 rallies and had a 2nd place in Spa, where Verschueren did not start. Although only the best 6 results count towards the championship, this rally is an ideal opportunity for Verschueren to take back a bunch of point.
Hi main rivals should be Cherain (if he is back at his old form), Fernémont (lot of confidence after his Spa victory but lacks experience) and Bouche (but he has no rythme and is getting older.
Other contenders for top 5 will be Bedoret, De Mevius (needs to find his confidence back after crashing in Spa and Corsica PET), Canal-Robles with the Fabia WRC etc.
Also the field in R2 is quite good, with Belgian youngsters Delhez, Munster, Reynvoet and Dilley against Dutch reference Timo Van der Marel.

On Friday there is a show stage that is run twice. On Saturday there are 3x4 different stages (first one of the loop is a largely new 23km stage), on Sunday they end with 2x4 different stages.

[dimviii]

, De Mevius (needs to find his confidence back after crashing in Spa and Corsica PET).

http://www.rallylovers.be/live/5/92#92

[rallysupportnl]

Video Rallye de Wallonie day 2:



Click on the photo or here --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb9IBnruIGU