rally started very good. we have left cold, cloudy switzerland in our ferrari daytona and found a sunny, warm climate in liguria. it was very spectacular taking pacenotes with that big, heavy car and listening to that wonderfull sound in the italian hills ... and it created, as one can imagine, a lot of atraction. anyhow, on the second day of recognition, the weather has changed dramaticaly, it even started snowing in the hills. not the right weather for the ferrari ... ;-)

for the rally itself, weather was dry again and the fantastic plateau offered 47 cars, some of them very fast (like carrera rs and so on), some of them spectacular, like a group 4 stratos, some of them slow but beautifull, like an invicta s of 1929 (of swiss drivers leumann/portmann). anyhow, generally speaking, historic rally grids seem to become every year more "monomarque", small cars like minis disapear, everybody buys a porsche because he seems to feel able to win. out of 47 cars, 16 were built in stuttgart then ... about half of the cars sompeted in the fia historic european championship event (periods c to g2), the others were newer cars of period h and x (classic cars, means group 2/4 cars without competition history, a new category by fia without definition!!!). since the newer cars can use 50 series yokohama tyres, did not run the last special stage and did not apear in the final classification, my report will focus on the championship cars. only frenchmen, by the way, were paul gardere / guy dutreuil, who wanted to defend their very good result of last year.

our rally started slow. it was the first outing of the completely reworked corvette. the car has mutch more power now (300 hp in place of the 220 we have had last season), the side exhaust system makes it extremly loud inside, so you can't talk without an intercom on the road sections, and the car has become very agile and nervous due to revised suspension (remember, the rear axle used to jump last year). i have not had the time to test the car, and it is completey different to last year.

due to this, i became a little bit affraid in the first special stage, the famous "perinaldo" (12,4 km). and, well, to tell you the truth, over winter i seem to have forgotten how to drive fast. so we were very slow, came 12th and lost 1'10 on the leading marchionni/spagnolatti in their 911 and were only 3 narow seconds faster than spectacular austrians holzer/haas in their steyr puch 650t (offering about six times less horsepower than our monster). gardere was 3rd, loosing 0'21. after the first stage i have had a long discussion with my new tuner and explained, that the car was shit, the tyres had no grip and it was terrible to drive. he just laught at me and told me to push the right foot a little bit stronger. hmmm

second ss (langan, 14,25 km) was not much better for us. but, i found back some of the trust i have had into the car last year. so, in some of the curves, the car started to swing. yep. we finished 10th, loosing 0'56 on winners bigatti/aralla in an alpine a110 group 4. this time, we were 29" faster than the puch, huh. gardere was 3rd again, loosing 16".

in the following discussion with my tuner, he looked at my tyres, laught again and explained me, that i drive much too slow. the avons were absolutely as new, no signs of use after 2 special stages. ok, i was a bit ashamed.

so,in the 3rd stage (vignai,19,75km) i mobilised all my courage, and, incredible, driving fast enough, the car realy started to danse. fantastic, controllable. natascha has had to find a much faster rhytm in talking the pacenotes. it felt good. yeah. in the middle of the ss, we were behind the datsun 240z (period h) of belgiums casier/eggermont who had started 2 positions before us. they were very slow and, unfortunately, the road was so narrow that it was impossible to overtake for a longer distance. so we've lost some seconds there, but still finished 5th, 0'50 behind winners marchionni/spagnolatti. much more impressive for us, we were only 16" slower than gardere, who finished 4th in front of us, and 1'16 faster than the puch. behind us were 4 porsche 911s, one porsche 914/6 group 4 (of fast lugi bormolini) 2 alpines and all the others. smile was back in our face and trust back in the car. even better, i realised, that the corvette has become much, much faster than ever. it just requests a little bit more currage

that was already the end of day one, a very easy, comfortable rally. we were happy, tyred and very self confident for a "maximum attack" day two. after the first leg and 47km of special stages, the rally was led by marchionni in front of bigatti and gardere. we were in 9th position, 2'52 back.

second day welcomed us with bright sunshine. and, yes, we kept on going quick, letting the heavy corvette swing and danse like a ballerina. ss4 (s. bernardo, 12 km) we finished 5th again, just 2 seconds behind gardere (4th) and 22 behind leader marchionni. at the time control the big shock: my clutch pedal remained on the flor, i've had no clutch anymore. that was impossible, the car was so good but broke again. nerves were lying blank. but, it was easy, our wonderfull tuner (bernhard bühler of bemani, only for the case that somebody of you needs a good preparation/assistance) repaired it in just 3 minutes. yes, it is worthwile to have a good crew.

ss5 (mendatica, 19km) was my favourite, i like the long ones. we finished 3rd, 6 secs faster than gardere (4th) and only 11" slower than leader marchionni. if one of you kind guys would have told me last year, that we once could be able to match times of paul gardere, i would have called him crazy.

ss6 (ponte dei passi, 12.5 km) was the one in which we've had snow during recognition, so we have made only one (the first) passage and had no clue, how good pace notes would be. still, we've finished 4th,

25" behind marchionni and 11" behind gardere (2nd). after this, there was a regrouping and a fantastic lunch buffet (in italy, they always offer us fantastic food; tell this the french organisers). in the classification before the last stage, leader was marchionni in front of gardere. we were 5th, 29 seconds behind bormolini in the 914/6. guess, what i wanted to achieve in the last stage ... ;-)

well, to make it short, we mounted new rear tyres and kept on flying in the final stage (colle d'oggia, 10.9km). we finished 3rd again, 10 seconds behind stage winner gardere, 2" faster than rally winner marchionni ... but only 16" faster than bormolini. so, we remained 5th in a wonderfull rally san remo, only 3'48 behind the winners. that means, that we have only lost 56 seconds on day two in 54 km of special stages. that was mutch better, than we have ever dreamed of and we were more than happy. gardere finished a fantastic second (1'46 back), the little puch, somehow my favourite car, 10th

. san remo is a fantastic event, very well organised by very friendly people and without any modern cars. it is a big rally festival and offers a plateau full of fantastic cars. i would reccomend it to all of you, specially because it is less than 30km from the french border.

i wish all of you a fantastic french rally season.

Amitiés

RETOUR