After ending the opening day of the Rallye Monte-Carlo leading the 2WD and R3  categories, rally star Pierre Campana endured a torrid second day suffering a puncture in SS5. The incident dropped him down the standings and forced him to mount a courageous fightback in snowy Monte-Carlo conditions in the afternoon stages.

Pierre, alongside his navigator Sabrina de Castelli, lost just under four minutes as a result of the puncture which was through no fault of his own, and left him fourth in the 2WD class, undoing all his hard work from day one.

He immediately started his determined resurgence by claiming the third fastest 2WD time in SS6 clawing back some of the lost time from the fifth stage, but the onset of snow during lunchtime service resulted in something of a lottery throughout the field during the afternoon.

Based on the snow conditions during the service, it was decided to fit Michelin snow tyres without studs in the belief that conditions would not worsen, which they subsequently did. Pierre went out with two studs in the boot as a precautionary measure but the competitors who followed had sufficient pre-warning of the worsening conditions and could capitalise on that knowledge by fitting studded tyres and gaining a valuable advantage.

Pierre made use of the two emergency studs to gain better balance for his Renault Clio R3 but a valiant effort in both final stages of the day – repeat runs of the morning stages – could not mask the clear advantage that fully studded cars had in the heavy snow, classic Monte-Carlo conditions.

Pierre ended the day third in the 2WD category, two minutes from the lead, and in 18th place on the general classification, heading into tomorrow’s legendary stages.

“It has been a day full of bad luck really,” said Pierre. “From the opening stage in which we experienced a sudden and unexpected puncture, we were playing catch-up. We lost just under four minutes changing the tyre which was a real blow, but things picked up in the next stage when we took the third fastest 2WD time in the stage in spite of some suspension damage caused by the puncture. Then, during service, it started to snow and we felt that with the information we had at that time that we could cope with unstudded snow tyres for the rest of the day. We went out with two studs in the boot just in case of an emergency and we certainly needed them. It was difficult conditions out there. For the final stage, we decided to use two studded tyres but it was not enough in those extreme conditions. We did quite a good job considering the advantage that the studded tyres gave competitors who went out later than us and we were happy to bring the car back for the final service. Tomorrow morning we have a long 30km stage and then the two legendary stages above Monaco so I am determined to use these stages to fight back. Anything can happen at Monte-Carlo so I will never give up.”

For more information about Pierre Campana, please visit www.pierrecampana.com or www.quadrasports.com, or email media@quadrasports.com

Valence, 20 January 2010