5ème Rallye Bordeaux Aquitaine Classic Moderne - 2024

 

Although it only finished in 42nd place, it was a real pleasure to see the Hommell Berlinette driven by Philippe and Quentin Costeseque.  A really beautiful French car.

This was the fifth instance that the Bordeaux Aquitaine Classic has had a plateau for modern cars and it gives us local to the region a chance, early in the year, to see some fast rally cars compete over the up and down tortuous vineyard roads of the Appelation Bordeaux.   Held over 2 days near the end of February, the rally promised three different special stages, each held four times, and thus a toal of 130km of timed rallying.  The weather for the weekend was not forecast to be good but it looked as though the Saturday stages might have a chance of being head in good weather.  I thus chose to spectate on Saturday on the 10.53km ES3 Doulezon-Pujols stage near Béros.  Accompanying me on his first French rally was Michael who enjoyed seeing some French cars he was not familiar with such as the Hommell. We had a pleasant afternoon and stayed dry even if it was a little cold.

The rally was a National Rally and counted towards La Coupe de France des Rallyes (coef 3) and the local league of Nouvelle Aquitaine Sud.  59 cars started and 43 ended up being classified as finishers.

The very fast Porsche 991 GT3 of Anthony Cosson and Kevin Millet.   It was very entertaining to watch them really attack the thirtd special stage.

Pre-rally favourite was Anthony Cosson in his Porsche who had won this rally when last held in 2022.  He won stages 2 and 3 and was amazingly fast as he passed us on ES3.  He thus held the lead fairly easily after three special stages.  Unfortunately, his car hit mechanical issues and he retired on ES4.

The Volkswagen Polo R5 of Cédric de Sousa and Emmanuel Brissaud.

After the demise of Cosson's Porsche, Cédric de Sousa took control of the rally and won the next three stages to lead comfortably at the end of day one.  Unfortunately, he also hit mechanical issues and retired on ES7 the first stage of day two.

The rally winners, Loïc Costes and Christelle Perrin, in their Peugeot 208 GR LINE.  

Winner of the first two Sunday stages, the new leader of the rally was young 24 year old Loïc Costes.  Although young he has already Fbeen rench Champion of all terrain rallies (Rallye Tout Terrain)  in 2021.  Due to very inclement weather conditions, the organisers decided to cacnel the last four special stages and thus Loic had his first overall win in a tarmac rally.  He was also winner of Group FRC4 and the Rally 4 class.

Second overall and winner of FRC2 and R5/Rally2 were Romain Buran and Nicolas Gilet in this Ford Fiesta.  They missed the win by just over 10 seconds.

Final position on the overall podium went to this Peugeot 208 driven by Benjamin Rico and Timothée Dinet. 

Fourth place and winner of class R3 went to Aurelien Pion and Maeva Perrinaud in this Renault Clio.

Fifth overall and winner of the important French National group was this Mitsubishi Lacer Evo X driven by Jérôme Clarety and Philippe Courtine.

Sixth overall and R2 class winner were Laurent Zambon and Carine Chaumeau.

Others taking part:

This BMW Z3 finished 17th.

This Porsche 996 GT3 RS 3.5 finished tenth and won the French GT group.

This BMW 318 Compact didn't finish.

This Mercedes-Benz C180 finished 35th.

This Renault Clio finished a good eighth.

This Subaru Impreza WRX STI finished a good ninth.

This Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X didn't finish.

This Renault Clio Williams finished 31st.

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This Citroën Saxo VTS finished 34th.

This Peugeot 106 16S finished 26th.