Traditional theater of the mid-season cape of the French Championship, the Aveyron-Rouergue-Occitanie rally and its tarred roads often melted by the heat of July takes place on Friday and Saturday around Rodez. The main question ahead of the summer break is: who will stop Yoann Bonato’s ongoing three-way hit streak?
The four-time French champion, winner only twice here (2017 and 2022), has been pushed around since the start of the season by Hugo Margaillan, his teammate at CHL Sport-Auto, but has managed to maintain the advantage each time: 6 ”0 at Charbonnières, 20”3 at Antibes but only 0”8 at Gérardmer. With the exception of Le Touquet, where none of the three main protagonists and their Citroën C3 Rally2s (Bonato, Margaillan and Eric Camilli) were on the podium, the top three is identical and in that order.
Other questions arise at the dawn of this 49th Rouergue rally… Will Margaillan manage to fill this tiny gap this time which separates him from his first victory in the French Championship? Will Camilli finally find the right entry settings and will he regain his burst of speed which allowed him to win here in 2021?
A first in France for the Skoda RS Rally2
Will another car than the C3 manage to climb to the top? William Wagner, disappointing from his podium at Le Touquet, swapped his Volkswagen Polo GTi R5 for a brand new Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 which arrived a few days ago from Sarrazin Motorsport. Will he thus regain his splendor? Léo Rossel, the fourth man in the C3 gang, will he be able to compile a race without problems and/or errors to confirm his progress?
Finally, it remains to be seen whether the Alpine A110 Rally RGTs of Raphaël Astier and Cédric Robert will succeed in intercalating among the leading Rally2 cars? Unless an outsider in C3 like Jean-Michel Da Cunha, winner here in 2015, or the other local Jordan Berfa (Hyundai i20 R5) comes to shake up the hierarchy…
Answers to all these questions on Saturday evening, after 205.6 km timed under a beautiful sun and temperatures around 30°C.
