 [28-10-2011]
PIERRE CAMPANA TAKES WET RALLYE CEVENNES BY STORM AFTER TWO DAYS DESPITE DRIVESHAFT DIFFICULTIES
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 [25-10-2011]
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 [11-10-2011]
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[28-10-2011]
PIERRE CAMPANA TAKES WET RALLYE CEVENNES BY STORM AFTER TWO DAYS DESPITE DRIVESHAFT DIFFICULTIES
 Pierre Campana has ended the second day of running at this weekend’s Rally Cevennes in second place overall but on a mission to regain over a minute of lost time as a result of a broken driveshaft in this morning’s SS4 and SS5.
Campana has utterly dominated the class of 198 entries at this French Rally Championship round, which he has twice won previously in junior classes, and was leading by almost ten seconds after the opening three special stages, which includes the solitary opening stage that took place on Thursday. Weather conditions have not been kind to the competitors with a wet course in every stage so far.
Pierre was coping admirably in the conditions but, unfortunately, he endured a broken front right driveshaft in the closing kilometres of the gruelling 21.21km fourth stage. Pierre was able to continue but he lost over 30 seconds of time in SS4.
Pierre did what he could to minimise further damage to the car by removing parts of the damaged driveshaft on the road section between SS4 and SS5, but he was still forced to carry the damage into the 9km SS5 Mars-Aumessas, losing him an additional 43s of time in the stage. The problem and resultant loss of time dropped him from the lead of the rally to second overall but 65 seconds behind the leader.
Thankfully, the Drive-Pro team worked its magic during the service break between SS5 and SS6 to enable Pierre to resume his quest for rally victory in the repeated loop of four stages. As night began to fall, Pierre showed his class to set consistent times in SS6 which compared favourably to the same stage in the morning, while his competitors found it hard to maintain the pace.
Pierre won SS6 and SS7 comfortably and saw his deficit to the lead slashed by nearly 20 seconds after just two stages. The repeated Le Vigan-Pommiers stage, SS8, in which he encountered his earlier problems proved to be anything but problematic in the evening as Pierre took the fastest time by four seconds. A close second place in Friday’s final stage ensured Pierre will start Saturday with a 46s deficit to the lead and with confidence from his performances so far.
Pierre Campana said:
“It’s been a bittersweet day for me today. I have been extremely pleased with our overall pace and competitiveness in the challenging wet conditions and it is clear that we have had the potential to win every stage today. So, it is rather regrettable that we had the driveshaft problem this morning which lost us a minute and a quarter of time. In between stages, I did what I could to remove the damaged part to allow Sabrina and I to continue without any further damage to the MINI John Cooper Works WRC. We still had to compete in SS5 with the problem and I was pleased that we did as well as we did considering the problem, but since then it has been a catch-up job to chase the lead. The Drive-Pro team worked well to fix the problem in time for the second loop and we were really on a hot pace. We were able to take over 20 seconds of time out of the lead in just three dark stages and we head into Saturday, the final day, with much more to do but we will never give up. We have the pace, the car and the team to win this rally so we will do all we can to overcome the driveshaft problems today.”
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