Pierre Campana finds himself in seventh position on the overall classification at the conclusion of the second day of this week’s Monte Carlo rally, after six tricky stages in slippery, low-grip conditions today.

Monte Carlo has certainly lived up to its legend for producing tricky rallying conditions. Pierre’s focus has again been on reliability and assuring he and co-driver Sabrina de Castelli get through to the third day of action unscathed. Lead contenders have already shown how easy it is even for the most experienced drivers to make mistakes through the challenging Monte Carlo stages, so Pierre’s approach has proven a sensible one.   

The opening trio of stages this morning allowed Pierre to reacquaint himself with the MINI John Cooper Works WRC car and to set a benchmark for himself to improve upon in the afternoon’s repeat loop. Defending his top eight position from day one, Pierre set the eighth fastest time in the 19km Labatie d’Andaure – Lalourese  SS5, negotiating the challenging slippery and icy conditions.

Pierre adopted a cautious approach to the fast 25km St. Bonnet-St. Julia-St. Bonnet stage, again being confronted with icy conditions, but he still registered a top ten time to maintain his top eight position overall. This was cemented with another top eight run in SS7, the 21.66km Lamastre-Gilhoc-Alboussiere stage.

Lunchtime service gave Pierre and the MINI WRC team a chance to reflect on the morning’s performance and there was an improvement at the start of the repeat loop, as Pierre put himself in the top six of SS8.

Navigating the still low grip terrain in SS9, Pierre set the tenth best time and followed that with a seventh place in SS10, which saw him end the day in an elevated seventh position overall with eight stages still to contest, including Sunday morning’s power stage.

Pierre Campana said: “It has been a tough day with ice and mud making for generally low grip, so I am pleased to have navigated the tricky conditions, but overall I still need to find more performance from myself. The MINI John Cooper Works WRC car has again performed faultlessly and I can feel the potential that this car has. I was too conservative in the first loop because I have been focussed on getting the car to the end of each stage but I made some improvements in the afternoon repeat loop. The ice conditions in the first two stages, especially the fast second stage, made life tricky, but I have plenty more to give. There are still seven stages plus the final power stage and a mistake-free day today gives me confidence for tomorrow.”