KR53 YPO is one of the (if not the most) used Lancer WRCs, but it might be the winningest as well, as she is still active and one of the few Lancer WRCs that won a championship as well!
But the beginning of her career was not this nice, though. She debuted on the 2004 Cyprus Rally in the hands of the Panizzi Brothers. At that time, the car was still green, and -let's be honest- slow, but it was the engine that stopped the Panizzis from taking home some points.
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| The engine couldn't take the constant overheating anymore - a retirement on her debut (Mitsubishi) |
Her next event was the 2004 Rally of Turkey, again with Panizzi. They were lying in 8th position when the ECU (Engine Control Unit) went up in smoke, and the car didn't go any further. They returned under SupeRally rules, and on the final day set top5 stage times on every stage except for the last one. When you look into this, you have to consider that the car was still seriously underdeveloped and Gilles has never been a gravel ace to say the least...
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| If the ECU didn't throw the towel in, who knows what would've happened... 2004 Turkey (Mitsubishi) |
Her first successful event was the 2004 Rally Finland. By successful I mean finishing the rally without SupeRally... Panizzi piloted her again, but this time he wasn't as fast as he was in Turkey, eventually finishing in 11th.
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| On the once called '1000 Lakes Rally'. The '1000 Jumps' would be fitting, too :) (Mitsubishi) |
Her final event of 2004 was the Catalunya Rally, still with Panizzi. The hopes were high after the team tested the car continuously and Gilles is great on tarmac. However, after lying 3rd after the second stage, they gradually slipped back and were off the pace; they eventually finished in a disappointing 12th.
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| Thousands of fans cheered them on, but that wasn't enough for a good result (Mitsubishi) |
2005
There were very few cars that started their life as 2004 spec cars, and were converted immediately into 2005 specification at the beginning of the season; she was one of them. She started the season in Sweden, with a new driver, Gigi Galli. For some strange reason, Galli has always done well with the Lancer WRCs in Sweden, even though he was Italian and had no previous experience of the rally or driving on snow! He did well in 2005 as well, he was in the thick fight for 4th place when the gearbox developed gearshift problems, and then the front-left driveshaft broke, leaving the crew with only rear-wheel drive for the final stage of the day. Even though it was only a superspecial, they lost 44 seconds on 1.86kms after spinning many times. By the end of the rally, they could only climb back to 7th, but it was an encouraging performance.
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| Never before Sweden would have anyone thought Galli's best surface could be snow! (Mitsubishi) |
Next up was the Sardinia Rally, again with Galli. It was Gigi's home event, but he couldn't enjoy it at all. On the first day he retired with a broken rear suspension, on the second he had gearchange problems and the stage was blocked in front of him twice, and on the third a broken gearbox put him out of his misery.
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| Galli's home event didn't turn out well at all: he had to retire twice... (Mitsubishi) |
Her next rally was the infamous car-wrecker held around Mount Olympos, known as the Acropolis Rally. Galli was fairly unfamiliar with the event, and didn't push at all, but contrary to this, he was able to hold off Markko Märtin for 7th.
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| A mudbath is always nice on a hot day, 2005 Acropolis Rally (Mitsubishi) |
Her final rally of the season was her final as a works car and also Panizzi's penultimate start for the team; this was none other than Mitsubishi's home event, the Rally Japan. Apart from fighting for confidence and changing the setup very often, Gilles had a problem-free run in the car, but he was slow at the same time, finishing only 11th.
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| She began her works career with Panizzi, and she ended it with him; 2005 Japan (Mitsubishi) |
2007
In 2007 the Ralliart England->MML conversion was already done, and some up-and-coming drivers needed relatively cheap, works spec cars; many (almost all of them) chose the Lancer WRCs. So did Estonia's Urmo Aava, who at that time was labeled as the next Markko Märtin (well, it's a different story that he didn't became a permanent works driver, and not necessary his fault... you know, money speaks more than talent these days.), and he often rented out MML cars (for example KX53 BKV) for his campaign. She rallied YPO on two occasions, the first being the 2007 Rally Finland. They had no problems except for a too big jump on Ouninpohja resulting in a bent steering arm, but with that replaced, he and co-driver Kuldar Sikk went on to finish 7th.
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| With a 2 years old car that has never been a world beating machine, finishing 7th was good (Mitsubishi) |
His second rally with her was the 2007 Rally NZ. The biggest problem for Aava was the fact that he couldn't test the car in rain, and almost all of the stages were muddy. Nevertheless, he finished in 8th despite that and his massive lack of experience, beating many younger and faster cars.
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| Apart from some mistakes, 8th place and a point was the crew's reward (Mitsubishi) |
2008
Her first rally in 7 months was the Granite City Rally with Philipp Morrow. The opposition was tough, but they emerged victorius; this was YPO's first rally win.
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| Granite City Rally 2008 (internet) |
After this little rally, she spent most of 2008 in Latvia, beginning with the Rallijs Talsi 2008; her driver was Ivars Vasaraudzis. The pairing was successful, proven by YPO's second win in a row.
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| 2008 Rallijs Talsi (hc.lv) |
Up next was the Rallijs Cesis, again with Vasaraudzis. However, the story was the same, they won the rally (the 3rd win in a row for the car), but with an even bigger lead than before.
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| 2008 Rallijs Cesis (Janis Asaris) |
The next rally in her calendar was another round of the Latvian Championship, the Rally Kurzeme. Vasaraudzis; another rally, another dominant win.
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| 2008 Rally Kurzeme (hc.lv) |
She made a trip back to the British Isles to take part in the Lurgan Park Rally with Mark Higgins. Unfortunately, the car's winning streak was broken by an S12b Impreza WRC, but Higgins brought the car home in 2nd place.
She closed the 2008 season in Latvia, but this time she got a new driver: Vasaraudzis' team-mate Raimonds Kisiels. He had no experience with the car, so he lost a lot of ime on the first day, and on the second his progress was halted with bad tyre choices, so he ended up finishing 5th.
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| 2008 Rally Latvia (Richards Baumanis) |
2009
Her 2009 season was somewhat less packedwith events (she did 4 rallies in contrary to 2008's six), spending the season in Latvia. She was assigned to Raimonds Kisiels for the season
season-opener, the Rally Sarma, eventually finishing 4th behind four Gr.N Evo IX's.
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| 2009 Rallijs Sarma (Arturs Tinte) |
Next up was the BTA Rally Talsi, again with Kisiels. This rally -again- wasn't to end on the podium with team-mate Vasaraudzis, as Kisiels finished 5th.
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| 2009 BTA Rally Talsi (www.rallyemotions.net) |
Her next event was the Rally Kurzeme, but now she and Vasaraudzis was paired again, and their usual success followed: they won the rally, but this time it was a little closer thanks to Georg Gross' 2003 Focus WRC.
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| 2009 Rally Kurzeme (Aigars Laurinovičs) |
The last event in her 2009 programme was the Rally Latvia, again with Raimonds Kisiels. Both he and Vasaraudzis had problems, so they finished way below where they used to finish: Vasaraudzis 5th, Kisiels 8th.
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| 2009 Rally Latvia (Aigars Laurinovičs) |
2010
If 2009 was a very comfortable year, 2010 was everything but that: she appeared in Latvia, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany...
Well, she started her Europe-tour in Estonia, with the Rally Sarma. Again, she was piloted by Kisiels, but they finished in 12th after getting stuck in a snowbank for over 2 minutes.
Her next rally was the Eger Rally in Hungary, which was a part of the Slovak Rally Championship, with Jaroslav Melicharek, who also used
KX53 BKO on several occasions in 2011-'12. As this was Melicharek's first ever rally with a WRC, his main goal was to bring home some points. He eventually finished 13th.
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| 2010 Eger Rally |
After Eger she was used in Slovakia again, with Melichárek driving her on the Prešov Rallye. He was more comfortable with the car as his gap to the leaders reduced heavily; but strong opposition meant he was 6th.
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| 2010 Prešov Rallye (Daniel Hlinka) |
After Prešov, she returned to Latvia for the BTA Rally Talsi 2010. This time Vasaraudzis was her driver, and that showed in the results, as they won the rally.
After Talsi, she returned to Hungary for the next joint Hungarian-Slovak championship event, the Salgó Rallye. Although Melichárek didn't win this time either, in the Slovak championship he picked up a 3rd place, again reducing his ss/km gap to the leaders.
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| 2010 Salgó Rallye (Cseh Norbert) |
After the Salgó, her next event was the Madona Rally, again with Vasaraudzis. And as usual, they won. If everything was as simple as that... :)
You can't say she wasn't busy in 2010-well, she travelled across Europe several times... Now, she was back to Slovakia for the Lubeník Rally, with Melichárek. He and the WRC got closer again, and that resulted in a 3rd place.
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| 2010 Lubeník Rally (Daniel Hlinka) |
She then made a trip back to the Baltic, but this time the biggest motorsport event of the three countries: the Rally Estonia, featuring drivers such as Markko Märtin... Again, Vasaraudzis drove her, but this time their winning streak came to an end due to technical problems: first the electronics went nuts, but they had to retire with a burning clutch. They restarted the next day, but lost the fuel pressure, so retired again.
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| 2010 MadCroc Rally Estonia (Janis Asaris) |
Well, her schedule certainly developed a pattern here: after Rally Estonia, she was brought to Poland for the Rajd Rzeszowski, which was part of the MSR. Melichárek finished 5th behind such names as Bouffier or Kuchar (even though they were driving S2000s, although those cars' suspension is much better than the Lancer's), but he was 2nd in the MSR as not every Polish driver elected to entry the MSR as well.
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| 2010 Rajd Rzeszowski (Daniel Hlinka) |
So, -not surprisingly...- next up was the Rally Kurzeme with Vasaraudzis. He was in a big fight with with Georg Gross who was driving a Focus WRC; however, on the very last stage, they had to retire with an electrical problem from the lead.
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| 2010 Rally Kurzeme (Janis Asaris) |
Her next rally was the Rally Vyškov with Melichárek. Apparently, they retired after going for a little trip in the forest.
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| After the accident, 2010 Rally Vyškov |
Next up was the Rally Košice, one of the most prestigious rallyes in Central Europe; in 2010, it was part of the Polish Championship and the MSR. Melichárek had a bit more luck than they had in the previous round, but still managed only an 8th place overall and a 5th in the MSR.
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| 2010 Rally Košice |
After Košice, she returned to Latvia for the very last time to compete on the Rally Latvia; to round off a great realtionship that resulted in 6 wins in 2.5 years, she was driven by Vasaraudzis again. And what a better way to end such a relationship than winning for the 7th and last time...
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| Her last time in Latvia and with Vasaraudzis, 2010 Rally Latvia (Janis Asaris) |
She then travelled all the way to Germany for the Lausitz Rally, this time with dutch driver Bert de Jong (he will have an effect on the further story of the car). They finished 5th after a very uneventful race.
Her final rally in 2010 was the Partr Rally Vsetín with Melichárek. This time everything was in place, so finally the pace meant they won for the first time together-on their last rally together... happy ending, right? :)
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| Finally a win, 2010 Rally Vsetín |
2012
Well, after resting up in the 2011 season (let's be honest, she deserved it!), she was bought by Bob de Jong, Bert de Jong's son. This car has the unique privilege being only the second Lancer WRC05 to be painted in a color that is not Ralliart Red (the first one was Bert's car, KP54 GXY). Their first rally together was the TankS Rally, where they finished 26th.
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| Debuting as 'Snow White' on the TankS Rally, 2012 |
Next up was the Vechtdal Rallysprint, this time Bob's co-driver was Annemieke Hulzebos (she became his permanent partner that year); the bad debut was followed by a great performance - winning on Bob's second rally in a WRCar!
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| Bob's (and the car's as Snow White) first win in a WRC, 2012 Vechtdal Rallysprint (Edwin Nieuwenhuis) |
Well, it looks like YPO's career involves patterns: her next rally, the ELE Rally started well as the crew was lying 3rd after the first day, but they had to retire on the 2nd day.
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| Snow White can look mean, 2012 ELE Rally (Jan Borger) |
After the disappointment of the ELE Rally, and the team was just trying to get a decent finish at the Omloop van Vlaanderen in Belgium; however, (except for Tsojen's C4 WRC, the Lancer is no match for that) they were very competitive, finishing 3rd, but only 10s behind Jeroen Swaanen, who went on to become the Dutch Champion in 2012!
Next up was the Hellendoorn Rally. The event went fairly well, as they finished 4th, beating Bob's dad Bert by over a minute.
The next event was the Rally Land van Altena, a legendary Dutch event returning after a long hiatus. However, this rally didn't go well for the crew as they had to retire.
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| 2012 Altena Rally (rally-online.nl) |
They rounded up the season in Belgium on the Rallye du Condroz-Huy. They finished 6th against very strong opposition (2008 Focus WRC, Xsara WRC, MINI WRC etc).
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| 2012 Condroz Rally (Flickr) |
2013
This year turned out to be great for the team on the stages, but not so much off of it as Bob's father Bert, owner of KP54 GXY, passed away after a long battle with illness. RIP Bert.
Bob's co-drivers this year were Bjorn Degandt and Kees Hagman. The car also got the WRC07 package, that means it is now 0.5sec/km faster than it was before! They started the season with the TankS Rally, and ended up finishing 2nd. Not a bad start to the year!
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| 2013 TankS Rally (Martijn Schouten) |
The Dutch Championship's next two rounds were in Belgium, first the Rallye de Wallonie, then the Sezoens Rally. Bob and Kees finished both rallies in 4th overall, but in the Dutch classification finished 2nd in Wallonie and won the Sezoens Rally!
Next up was the ELE Rally, this time Bob's partner was his father's co-driver, Bjorn Degandt. Bjorn is one of the most experienced co-drivers available, and that showed in the results: on a rally that caught out defending champion Swaanen and van Loon among others, they won by a country mile!
The upcoming round was the GTC Rally, and after finishing the first day as a leader, they didn't start the second day because Bert's condition got worse, so Bob travelled to Germany to the hospital.
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| 2013 GTC Rally (Edwin Nieuwenhuis) |
The penultimate rally of the Dutch Championship was the Hellendoorn Rally - the all-star event of the Netherlands, with returns of van Eldik, van Merksteijn jr, Kuipers jr, etc. The Lancer was no match for the C4/DS3/Focus08/Fiesta WRC, so they finished 6th.
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| 2013 Hellendoorn Rally (Martijn Schouten) |
The season-closing round was the Conrad Euregio Rally. Bob was fighting with Kuipers and his Fiesta WRC, but finished second. But what is more important, they won the Dutch Title!
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| Kuipers congratulating de Jong after the last stage, Euregio Rally 2013 (MML Sports) |
2014
This year started with a win for the team on the testrally of the Dutch, the Circuit Short Rally.
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| 2014 Circuit Short Rally (Martijn Schouten) |
This year, the team will be participating in the Belgian Championship, and they started the season with the TAC Rally. Unfortunately, the gearbox developed gearshift problems on the 7th stage, and even though they thought they solved the problem in service, they had to retire on the 9th stage.
Only two weeks after the TAC
Rally, the next round of the BRC, Rallye de Wallonie, was held. Just as the team promised, they solved the gearbox issues, and they finished 4th behind two faster WRCs and Freddy Loix, constantly contending for the podium. Not bad!
The next stop in their programme was the ELE Rally on 14-15th June. They dominated the event, and brought home the win in front of a C4 and a Fiesta WRC.
This year, it looks like they're nearly unstoppable: on the GTC Rally, they edged out Edwin Schilt's S14 Impreza to claim their 2nd win in a row. With this, they also have a great foundation for their title defence.
Their next event was part of the Belgian Championship, the legendary Omloop van Vlaanderen. They had a solid rally, and finished 3rd, just 11.1s behind
second-placed Freddy Loix's semi-works Skoda Fabia S2000.
They made an outing to the star-studded, non-championship East Belgian Rally. The tough competition (Thierry Neuville in an i20 WRC, Kris Princen in an Impreza S12b) wasn't the main problem; they couldn't really get going because of many problems, and retired on SS9.
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| East Belgian Rally 2014 (www.fotolorenz.be) |
2015
On his facebook, Chris van Woensel updated a photo showing him testing this car. There's no info yet on whether he bought it or he's just renting it
, but it looks like it'll be in use this season. For the sake of info, it replaces Chris' former car, a 1999 Impreza WRC, T11 SRT
.
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| New year, new driver, new livery (Chris van Woensel facebook) |
Their first rally together was the Rally van Haspengouw. They were hoping for a good result, but it wasn't to be; on the second stage, a part broke in the suspension, and they had to retire. More pictures to follow.
The second round of the 2015 BRC was the Spa Rally, highlighted with a strong entry again. They didn't have much luck again, collecting a three minute penalty (if I understand correctly, it was for illegal recce on Friday, but correct me if that's not true, Google Translate is all I have) along the way before retiring on SS10 from 17th place. However, apart from the penalty, they did some encouraging times, so hopefully next time around they can finish and get a good result.
They returned on the Sezoens Rally, and just like the previous rallies, this was a bittersweet one. After day1, they were in the lead (beating the likes of Loix, Princen, etc.), but had to retire after a crash.
Their unlucky season continued with the Autosoft Vechtdal Rally, as they had to retire even before they started the first stage due to the starter motor not operating.
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| Putting the car back onto the trailer, Vechtdal Rally 2015 (youtube) |
After a long pause, the team returned to competition on the Aarova Rallysprint. And what a return it was! First of all, they finished - bust most importantly, won! Let's hope with their bad steak now broken
, they can challenge for a good result
on the East Belgian Rally!
After good preparation, the East Belgian Rally didn't went well at all. They were leading after SS1, but fell back, and after the 7th stage, they decided to retire as the engine was running in safe mode only.
They also started the star-packed Rallye du Condroz, and after the many nagging problems this year, they hired the assistance of MML. The problem that caused the retirement on the East Belgian Rally was found, and they were hoping for a good result. Evertyhing was good and they were very fast until an electrical problem forced them to retire for the second time in a row on SS4. They will replace the whole cable harness over the winter and hopefully can get good results next year!
2016
They returned on the opening round of the BRC, the Rally van Haspengouw, with a car that was totally rebuilt throughout the winter by MML Sports. Last year they were fast, but had nothing to show for it, but this year it seems that trend has ended. They led the rally till SS8, but still were just 2.5s off Loix after the penultimate stage, but a loss of nearly 17s on the last stage dropped them back to 3rd. Still, a good start to the year!
Next up was the Rallye de Wallonie, with a very strong entry list (with lots of R5 cars, 2x C4 WRC and a Fabia WRC). They started steadily, then worked their way into the top three. But unfortunately the propshaft broke, so they had to retire again. Hopefully now their luck will take a turn for the better.
After a very long summer break (they weren't allowed to run on Ypres, even though other cars with national homologations were), they returned on the Omloop van Vlaanderen. The event started well, as they were the only ones who had medium compound tyres in the rain on the first day, and got to the lead immediately. On the second day, they controlled the event, and slowly all their competitors fell aside, and recorded their first win of 2016!
The next round of the BRC was the East Belgian Rally, and with a very strong entry (Loix, Weijs, Princen, etc). After the first day, they were leading in front of Loix and Cherain (both with Fabia R5s), but on the second they slipped behind Cherain, and finished 2nd; still a great result and a lot of points!
The Belgian Championship's last round, the Condroz Rally,
was their next event. They were already hindered by their starting position on the first day (and especially after the weather turned bad), but the biggest problem was a 1m20s penalty, which they received after they had to get out a loose bolt that caused the transmission to lock up. On the second day, they won 4 stages, but could only climb back to 7th.
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| Condroz Rally 2016 (www.belgianrallychampionship.be) |
2017
After the regulation change in Belgium (nobody can enter a rally with a WRC if they won in the last couple of years with it), van Woensel put the car up for sale. But it seems that for now it stays with him, and he just had his first rally with it this season - in France, the Rallye National Epernay Vins de Champagne. And not only did they start the season with a win - they did so against an armada of DS3 WRCs and other newer cars!
Their second event of 2017 was the Rallye de Luxembourg. They won 2 stages, and ended up 3rd, behind two R5 cars, and did beat some newer WRCs and R5s as well. So all in all, a very good podium in a strong field of cars.
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| Rallye de Luxembourg 2017 (Björn Reidenbach / ewrc.cz) |
After Rally Luxembourg, Chris and the car took on the Short Rally Kasterlee as a VIP/course car. Sadly, this year X2 MMR was not present, as the two works cars of different eras would have been nice to see next to each other.
Their next rally was the Rallye de National Vosgien. They started really well, and even led for 3 stages before falling back to second, where they finished the rally. No win, but a good performance nonetheless!
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| Rallye National Vosgien 2017 (MML Sports) |
For the Rallye Hautes Fagnes, the car welcomed a famous Belgian Mitsubishi driver, Larry Cols. Larry has not been competing regularly since 2007, but was fast immediately. Sadly, they had to retire after the car caught fire due to a fuel leak.
2018
Her first event of the 2018 season was the Rallye Vosges, 4th round of the French Tarmac Championship. Unfortunately, they had a troubled event, and retired due to personal reasons on the befinning of day 2.
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| Rallye Vosges 2018 (Gérard Simenel / rallye-sport.fr) |
Next up was the Rally de Luxembourg. They had very strong competition with many newer WRCs and R5s, but had a great performance, and in the end, they finished 2nd, just a little over half a minute behind the winning DS3 WRC driven by Marijan Griebel. So if this trend continues (last year they were 3rd here), next year we might have a good bet at the winners. ;)
Their next event was the Rallye National Charlemagne in France.
The entres were quite serious, with Impreza WRCs, many R5s in the field. Unfortunately, they couldn't capitalise on the podium in Luxembourg, and had to retire due to a transmission problem.
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| Rallye National Charlemagne 2018 (Enzo Mahinc / ewrc.cz) |
Update 2020.02.01: She is still with Chris, and hopefully they will be back competing together soon!
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| In 2019. october (CVW facebook) |
2020
Chris and the car returned to action on the Rally van Haspengouw. There were very demanding conditions, with strong wind, rain, mud, etc. Due to their starting position (#19) they faced very dirty stages, but they did the best they could, and finised 8th overall and 1st in RC1 class.
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| Rally van Haspengouw 2020 (Gregory Timmerman - ewrc.cz) |
2021
She returned to action on the Rally van Staden after getting new ECU at TDP in Ireland (the old was Magneti Marelli). Chris and Rik drove a decent rally, with getting some top5 stage times in last couple of stages - certainly doing only one event in the car each year means they have to get up to speed. In the end, they finished 6th overall in a very competitive field, missing out on 4th overall by just 15s.
Track record
Starts: 77
Wins: 16
Podiums: 27
Retirements: 21
