The Pirelli Rally, which took place in the county of Cumbria in northern England, marked the first round of the British Rally Championship. There were two legs in total, featuring 14 special stages. The legendary Kielder Forest served as a backdrop to the 168.98 kilometres of gravel action scheduled.
Some typically British weather awaited the competitors on Friday afternoon as they took the start. The opening leg consisted of just four special stages, acting as a taster for the main action to follow.
Nonetheless, run at night on twisty and muddy roads, those first four stages presented a variety of traps to catch out the unwary. Simon Jean-Joseph sensibly decided to avoid taking any risks. Nonetheless, he picked up a puncture in the middle of SS2, which cost him a handful of seconds. The Citroën got to the end of a difficult evening leading the ‘R2’ class. It was also fighting for the overall two-wheel drive lead with cars from the category above.
On Saturday morning, Simon and Jack started leg two with the firm aim of improving upon their 15th place overall. In the thick of a constantly hectic fight, the Citroën crew hit a rock on SS8 and was forced to retire with a broken radiator.
« The stages at the start of the day weren’t favourable to us, but I thought that we could get a good result through the afternoon loop, » said Simon. « It was extremely frustrating as there was nothing I could do. The stone was just after a jump. I saw it at the last moment – as I landed on it. It was too late and a big impact; I knew straightaway that it was all over. Four other competitors fell into the same trap. It’s infuriating to end up like this when we were in the middle of a fantastic battle, and together with Alexis Avril (responsible for engineering at Citroën Sport’s customer competition programme) we were slowly but surely refining the set-up of the car on a surface that we did not know too well. The Pirelli is an extremely complicated rally with its heavily cambered roads, which are often covered in mud and extremely rough. We were gradually getting to grips with it though and I’m sure we had the chance of a very good overall final placing. It’s just a big disappointment. »
Jean-François Liénéré, in charge of Citroën Sport’s customer division said: « The Citroën C2-R2 MAX has once more underlined its potential, on its first event on gravel. This retirement is very disappointing for everyone. Nonetheless, Simon and Jack still demonstrated that even on the most demanding surfaces, the C2-R2 MAX is capable of punching above its weight. The journalists and drivers set to take part in our promotional operation tomorrow will have the chance to find that out for themselves. »
