After a dry start to the season, rain put in an unwelcome appearance on day one of the Geko Ypres Rally, with encroaching mud making the roads slippery and providing some very tricky conditions, particularly for the 2WD cars. While Germain Bonnefis got through day one safely, Robert Consani was not so fortunate, his rally ending all too early after he crashed in SS1, forcing him to retire a couple of stages later.

The roads dried on Saturday, allowing Germain Bonnefis to get the best out of his car on the narrow Belgian roads. Gradually picking the pace up, he climbed the Production Cup classification, a blend of speed and prudence eventually earning him fifth place overall. The French driver was understandably delighted with his efforts in his first event on such tricky roads, which brought him some precious points in the race for the Production Cup Drivers and Teams titles.

Germain Bonnefis: “I’m very pleased to have made it to the finish line in an event that was entirely new to me. It wasn’t easy to stay on the asphalt on day one but we used our heads. The rain and the mud made the roads very slippery and the grip conditions were changing all the time. On Saturday we managed to get the hard tyres on and have some fun. The Megane R.S. N4 proved to be ultra reliable and this is the third rally now in which we’ve finished without any problems and without any mechanical glitches. Scoring points for fifth place is great as far as the championship is concerned. We’ll starting thinking about the Barum Rally soon, but for the moment we are savouring this result. We are second in the teams and drivers championships and we are working towards our objectives.”

Robert Consani: “It just wasn’t meant to be for us in this rally. We had an engine problem during the shakedown, which prevented us from taking part in the qualification session and from checking out our settings. The team did a fantastic job in working through the night on Thursday to change the engine, but the rear of the car behaved strangely right from the start of the opening special and was jumping around a lot on the inside of the corners. We were taking a right-hander near the end of stage one when the car flipped out, the chassis grounded on the inside of the corner and we finished upside down in the ditch. The fans got us back on four wheels again and we managed to complete the stage and take part in the next two. The car had suffered too much damage, though, and we had to pull out. I’ve been driving the Megane R.S. N4 for three years and it’s never behaved like that before. Our rear shock absorbers weren’t quite set up right but we didn’t get the chance to test them because of the problems we had on Thursday.”