On the Le Touquet rally 

Corsican driver Pierre Campana endured a disappointing end to the Le Touquet Rally in northern France, the penultimate round of the French Suzuki Cup, when he rolled out of the class lead in adverse conditions.

Campana – who won the Renault Clio R3 class on the Sanremo Rally just a week ago – felt the frustration as well as the joys of motorsport at Le Touquet, after an accident on the 11th stage in wet weather deprived him of the chance to take a third win in the Suzuki Cup this year.

Despite this setback, Campana still has a mathematical chance of taking the Suzuki title and he has vowed to keep pushing hard to the end although the odds are very firmly stacked against him.

The Le Touquet Rally is also a scoring round of the French asphalt championship and it is well-known as one of the most demanding events on the Suzuki Cup calendar. The rally started on Friday evening with a superspecial on the seafront in Le Touquet followed by two further speed tests.

Campana’s objective throughout the opening stages of the rally was to get re-acquainted with his Group N Suzuki Swift – a largely standard car – after driving the R3 challenger in Sanremo.

He ended the opening day third in the Suzuki rankings, having steered clear of trouble in the wet and slippery conditions. The second day was an extremely long one, consisting of 10 special stages.

The weather was once more extremely wet, meaning that grip levels were close to zero and Campana had to fight the car as much as his rivals. Several competitors fell by the wayside after being caught out by spins and accidents.

Nonetheless Campana took the Suzuki Cup lead on SS9, and by SS11 his advantage was more than a minute and a half. With the roads now drying, Campana and his co-driver Sabrina de Castelli took care to observe every braking point and potential hazard in order to minimise the risk of going off.

Following a hairpin on SS11 though, Campana lost the back end of the car under acceleration in a straight line. Unfortunately the back wheel of the Suzuki dropped into a ditch by the side of the narrow road and pitched the car into a series of spectacular rolls.

“When you are using standard road tyres, this is always a risk,” explained Campana.

“Our Suzuki does not have so much power, but the fact that we still lost it in a straight line just goes to underline how slippery the conditions were: it was like driving on ice. It’s obviously frustrating but there was nothing that we could really do about it and I’m just pleased that the accident did not result in any sort of injury for myself or Sabrina.”

” We had a good lead and I’m sure that we could have extended it, yet we simply found a patch of road where the grip was less than zero. I’d like to thank the Rougier Sport team for another excellent job in preparing our car, and my long-time sponsor Yacco.”

”Unfortunately the damage to the car is considerable so this sadly puts our participation on the next round into doubt, but this is part of motorsport. We will be doing everything we can to get out again.”

The final round of the French Suzuki Cup takes place on the Cevennes Rally over the first weekend of November.

For more information:

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www.pierrecampana.com
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source: Quadra Sports