Rouen-les-AFX: 3ème Rallye Régional Val de Boutonne

A Peugeot 106 Rallye attacking the ES3 stage at Moragne driven by Mickael Guinot and Grégory Jeanneau. They finished 50th overall.

March 24th saw the third running of the Rallye Val de Boutonne. A qualifying round of the Coupe de France des Rallyes, it is organised by l'ASA Richelieu and takes place in the Charente Maritime Department. A French regional rally it is run over six stages (two different stages each run three times over one day) with a total timed competition running of 40km and a total kilometrage of 123km.

A good field of 102 cars started the rally. I watched them on both ES2 the Lussant-Cabariot stage and ES3 the Moragne - St Coutant stage. With relatively reasonable weather a good crowd came out to see the rally cars on the stages and in Tonnay-Boutonne.

The Favouites:

Cédric De Sousa, a French driver from a well known rallying family, won the Rally Val de Boutonne in 2023. He drives a Volkswagen Polo.

Bruno Longepe is a 53 old French rally driver who won the Coupe de France des Rallyes in 2014. He won the first edition of the Rallye Val de Boutonne in 2022 and is a regular winner in his Volkswagen Polo.

Jimmy Thibaudeau is a 45 year old French rally driver and was runner up in last year's Rallye Val de Boutonne. He drives a beautiful sounding Porsche 997.

Mathias De Sousa, a cousin of Cédric, is a 32 year old French rally driver, who earlier this month finished second in the Rallye de la Vienne. He drives a Citroën C3.

The rally was based at the Cooperative Agricole in Tonnay-Boutonne.

All of the top ten finishers and group winners plus a fair selection of the rest are shown below:

The rally winners were Bruno Longepe and Ronan Choucroun in this Volkswagen Polo. They won five of the six stages.

A close second were Cédric De Sousa and Emmanuel Brissiaud, also in a Volkswagen Polo. Here they are on stage 2 which they won to take a brief lead in the rally.

Third on the podium in this Citroen C3 were Mathias De Sousa and Baptiste Langlois.

Fourth overall and winner of the FRGT group was this Porsche 997 driven by Jimmy Thibaudeau and Dimitri Pilet.

Fifth overall and winner of FRNAT group were Gary Guerin and Jordan Jecomte in this Subaru Impreza WRC STI.

Sixth overall was this Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X of Johnann Hayet and Kévin Boisson.

Seventh overall and winner of the FRC4 group was this Renault Clio 5 of Thierry Landais and Morgan Lefebvre.

Eighth overall and winners of the R3 class were Aurélien Pion and Maëva Perrinaud in this Renault Clio.

Ninth overall in this Renault Clio were Joris and Christophe Decou.

Tenth overall was this Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9 of Aurélien and Julie Brillaud.

Tenth overall and winner of the FRC5 group were Noelic Solnais and Paul Beneteaud in this Peugeot 106 XSI.

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