30ème Rallye National de la Vienne 2022 - Moderne

Christian and Nathalie Roulleaux in their Peugeot 206 Super 1600 on ES3.  They eventually hit mechanical issues that prevented them finishing.

The 2022 Rallye de la Vienne was the thirtieth running of the event and was a national tarmac rally event counting for 'La Coupe de France des Rallyes coefficient 3' and the local regional league championship of Nouvelle Aquitaine Nord.   There were 94 cars that started the rally and 67 that finished.  The rally was held over 12 special stages on Saturday 12th March 2022.  In total there were 132km of special stages for which an interesting and varied field of GT and touring cars assembled and many of them can be seen in action from the photos I took on ES1 and ES3.     There was a good battle for the lead of the rally between the R5 cars 1 (Hernandez) and 2 (Millet) with the GT3 Porsche of Anthony Cosson keeping them on their toes.  Also nice to see some young talent doing well on the rally such as Matteo Chatillon.

A couple of competitors were hurt on this rally when they crashed in to an empty house.  I wish them a fast recovery.

It was also good to see so many spectators at this rally, even if at times it made it difficult to get close to the action (I am an amateur photographer with no media pass, so I shoot from the public zones)..... but good to see you all there. good to to know that I am not the only one to enjoy rally cars.

The Citroën C2 of Romain Fouquet and Benoît Ducroix on ES3.  They retired with mechanical issues on ES9.

It may surprise some of my readers that local hero Simon Pagenaud won this rally back in 2014.  He of course went on to win the Indy Car series in 2016 and the Indy 500 in 2019.   He is quoted as saying that rallying is his favourite type of motorsport.  For Simon Pagenaud Indy Car pictures click here.

Sébastien and Delphine Gallard show us how to take a tight hairpin bend in their Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 8 with a big slide and opposite lock correction.  Very entertaining for the spectators.

For those interested, I took all of the photos (except of the drivers) on a Canon 7D Mk II DLSR and used the following lenses; 100-400mm zoom, 17-55mm zoom and 135mm F2.  The pictures with the particularly high quality and slightly blurry backgrounds were taken with the latter lens.  Where I was forced to be a long way way from the action I used the longer zoom and when very close to the action the shorter zoom.   Hopefully, you will enjoy seeing this selection of the rally cars and their drivers that take part in French rallies in my region.

For the VHC historic rally cars that competed on this rally, click here.

For the 2022 Bordeaux Aquitaine Classic Rally (Modern), click here.

Some of the cars that finished in the top fifty:

For a change, I have put the cars in reverse order.

In 49th position, the Citroën Saxo Kit Car of Daniel Pedeneau and Goulven Treguier.

In 45th position, The BMW 320i of Fabien Prevoteau and Charlotte Hivert.

In 35th position and lifting a rear wheel, the Peugeot 208 of Samuel Rollier and Emilie Perrinaud.

In 31st position, the Peugeot 207 RC of Nicolas Foulon and Frédéric Evin.

A wider angle view of the ES3 hairpin bend and the 29th placed Renault Clio RS of Denis and Alain Saulnier.

In 27th position, the Peugeot 206 RC of Alexandre Roux and Séverine Sarrazin.

In 26th position and winner of class FRC4/A6K, the Peugeot 206 of Sébatien Gourdon and Romain Metayer.

In 18th position, the Renault Megane of Jonathan Dubray and Christelle Garilliere.

In 16th position, the Hyundai i20 of Jonathan Orens and Franck Mercier.

In 14th position and lifting up a rear wheel, the Renault Clio III RS of Thierry Boisdron and Sandrine Caramigeas.  For Thierry it was his 22nd time of competing in the Rallye de la Vienne, which is more than anyone else.  He has had a podium finish in the past.

In 13th position, the Porsche 997 GT3 RS of Philippe Taffonneau and Julien Boulet.  Philippe won this rally in 2017 in a Porsche.

In 11th position and winner of class F214, the Renault Clio Ragnotti of Anthony Langlois and Eric Meudic.

In tenth position and winner of class R3, the Renault Clio RS of Dimitri Charles and Flavien Rateau.

In ninth position, the Porsche 997 of Alain Colin and Eric Daguze.

In seventh position and winner of Group FRC4, the Peugeot 208 of Matteo Chatillon and Maxence Cornuau.  Very good to see this young 20 year old local driver do so well in his first event this year having entered as a junior in various rallies over the last couple of years..  Maybe he will be a star of the future.

In sixth position, the Skoda Fabia of Fabien and Jérôme Despois.

In fifth position and winner of the French Rally Nat Group, the Mitsubishi Lancia Evo X of Michel and Sylvie Bourgeois.

In fourth position, the Volkswagen Polo of Bruno Longepe and Ronan Choucroun.

In third position and winner of the FRGT Group, the Porsche 991 GT3 of Anthony Cosson and Kévin Millet.   They won ES4 and ES7.  In 2020 Anthony had finished second on this rally in a Skoda and won the Bordeaux Aquitaine Classic recently at the end of February in this Porsche, so was expected to do well.  Perhaps, the damp early stages didn't help his chances of doing better.

In second position, the Volkswagen Polo GTi of Denis Millet and Manon Verger.  They won the first three stages of this rally when it was damp.

A short rest for Denis and Manon before ES4.  At this stage they were leading the rally and were really going well.  Denis was probably hoping to add to the four wins he has had in the last year.

The winner of the rally was this Skoda Fabia of Nicolas Hernandez and Mathieu Maurin.  They won seven of the twelve stages and led from the end of stage eight onwards.  For local boy Nicolas it was his fourth win in this rally in a row (2018,19,20,22).  

John Etherton asserts his copyright to all of the photos on this blogpost.  However, you may post the photos elsewhere on the web as long as you credit the photographer, John Etherton, and this blog post, Rouenlesafx@blogspot.com and provide a link to this page.

John Etherton affirme son droit d'auteur à l'ensemble des photos sur ce billet de blog. Cependant, vous pouvez poster des photos ailleurs sur le web aussi longtemps que vous créditez le photographe, John Etherton, et ce blog, Rouenlesafx@blogspot.com et fournissez un lien vers cette page.

Some of the Porsche rally drivers chatting before the start of ES4.  Anthony Cosson facing us in the centre and his co-driver Kévin Millet on the left.  Alain Colin is on the right and Eric Daguze has his back to us.

38ème Rallye régional du Médoc - Moderne 2021

The Renault Clio 2 of Debec and Kistersky on ES4.

There were over eighty starters in the modern section of the 38th running of this year's Rallye du Medoc and of these sixty eight were classified at the end of the event.  There was a good field of competitive R5 cars at the front and some nice variety down the field, including cars dating back many years.   You can see a mixture of both in my photos from  the fourth special stage on Sunday 12th December and from the Parc Fermé the day before.    Run on minor public roads around the Médoc peninsula and its world famous Bordeaux vineyards, the rally has been centred around the town of Lesparre-Médoc for a number of years, and traditionally is one of the last events on the calendar, and a welcome excuse to avoid Christmas markets!  Last year it was cancelled because of Covid so this year's event was eagerly anticipated.  The Sunday when I attended the special stage was a warm day that stayed dry in the morning, even if it was rather grey most of the time.   Later in the day it rained so the competitors got a mixture of wet and dry driving and also day and night driving.  I certainly enjoyed my morning watching and taking pictures at this regional asphalt rally and hope you enjoyed that I shared some of it with you.  

Like all regional rallyes in France the total distance of the timed special stages of the Rallye du Médoc is limited to just 40km, but it still gives the competitors and spectators a good weekend with nighttime stages on the Saturday evening and daytime stages on Sunday morning and early afternoon.

For those motor sport historians who may recognise the name of Lesparre-Médoc but can't quite remember why, there was a F2 race run around the public roads of this town in 1950.  It was a triangular shaped circuit and the race was won by André Simon in a Simca-Gordini.  Raymond Sommer and Jean Behra also competed that day, May 5th 1950. 

For the VHC/VHRS cars, click here.

The winner of the rally was this Volkswagen Polo R5 of Jean-Sébastien Vigion and Adrien Labrousse.

The winner of the rally, Jean-Sébastien Vigion is a 38 year old French driver who first won the Rallye du Médoc back in 2007.   As well as being a rally champion he has also had success in rallycross.

Runner-up was this Citroën DS3 R5 with the team of Julien Marty and Michaël Dussillos. 

The third team on the podium were Luc Giroux and Julien Loup in a Citroën C3 R5.

An unusual car to see on a rally was this Aston Martin Vantage.  Here it is in the Parc Fermé.  Unfortunately it left the road on the first special stage, so no chance to see it on ES4.

The Peugeot 106 S16 of Vigier/Lauseille.

Peugeot 205 Rallye on ES4 driven by Fragnaud/Brun.

The Subaru Impreza of Guerin/Lecomte

Headlights blazing on the Renault Clio of Buran/Gilet.

The BMW Z3 of Lasalle/Irigaray just before it broke down.

The Parc Fermé in Lesparre-Médoc with a Seat Ibiza in the foreground.

The Bezinauds in their BMW Compact.

Kicking  up the dust is the Renault Clio RS Line of Harnois and Pichon.  They won RC5.

Winner of the RC4 Group was the Renault Clio of Pion/Regal.

Winner of the RNat Group were the Larqeuys in this Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X.

The rather impressive looking Porsche 997 GT3 RS 3.8 that unfortunately didn't finish the rally. 
However, it did made a nice noise!

The Subaru Impreza STI Prodrive of Remolins/Vernhez.

Borderie/Palombie in a  BMW 318 Ti Compact.

John Etherton asserts his copyright to all of the photos on this blogpost.  However, you may post the photos elsewhere on the web as long as you credit the photographer, John Etherton, and this blog post, Rouenlesafx@blogspot.com and provide a link to this page.

John Etherton affirme son droit d'auteur à l'ensemble des photos sur ce billet de blog. Cependant, vous pouvez poster des photos ailleurs sur le web aussi longtemps que vous créditez le photographe, John Etherton, et ce blog, Rouenlesafx@blogspot.com et fournissez un lien vers cette page.

The Peugeot 206 of Mulon/Lopes.

Another of the faster R5 cars, the Citroën C3 of the Brissiauds.

An electric rally car!  A Porsche Taycan turbo arrives to take part in the ENRS part of the rally.

61ème Course de Côte du Mont Dore / Chambon-sur-Lac, Groupe A Touring Cars

Jean-Sébastien Fel in a Groupe A Peugeot 308 Cup towards the top of the climb on his way to ninth.

 Featured in this post from the 2021 Course de Côte du Mont Dore are the Group A Touring Cars.   These cars are the fastest touring cars on the hills of France.  The winning car achieved a time of 5 minutes 37 seconds which is not too far off the 5 minutes 13 seconds achieved by the exotic Audi R8 which won the GTTS group.   All the top ten in this Group are shown here with photos from the wet Saturday runs.

The winner of Groupe A was Stéphane Auriacombe in a Peugeot 308 Cup.  He was also 6th overall amongst all the Production based cars bearting many GTTS and GT cars.

Second in Groupe A was Jérôme Janny in a Seat Leon Supacopa Mk2.

Third in Groupe A was Stéphane Garcia in a Peugeot 308 Racing Cup.

Fourth was Jean-Pierre Pope in a Peugeot 308 Cup.

Nearing the top of Mont Dore is Manuel Brunet in a Peugeot 308 Cup.  He came 5th.

Geoffroy Bouhin splashes his way up the hill to sixth  in a Seat Leon Supacopa Mk2.

The 7th placed Seat Leon Supacopa Mk3 of Sarah Bernard.

The Seat Leon Supacopa Mk2 of Thierry Tierce.  He was 8th in the group.

The tenth placed Seat Leon Supacopa Mk2 of Nicolas Granier.

John Etherton asserts his copyright to all of the photos on this blogpost.  However, you may post the photos elsewhere on the web as long as you credit the photographer, John Etherton, and this blog post, Rouenlesafx@blogspot.com and provide a link to this page.

John Etherton affirme son droit d'auteur à l'ensemble des photos sur ce billet de blog. Cependant, vous pouvez poster des photos ailleurs sur le web aussi longtemps que vous créditez le photographe, John Etherton, et ce blog, Rouenlesafx@blogspot.com et fournissez un lien vers cette page.

The Nissan Almera of Michel Bineau.

The Renault Clio Cup of Jessy Schenk.

The Renault Clio Cup of Cyril Derre.