The winner of the season’s opening two events, Princen was forced to retire after suffering engine problems in the first special stage, which ended with Mauffrey in the lead ahead of Vaillant and Olivier Courtois. Rounding off the top six were Deloy, Damien Tozlanian and Thierry Venturini.

The duel between Mauffrey and Vaillant quickly began to take shape, as the latter recorded the fastest times in the second, fourth and fifth special stages to move to the top of the leaderboard.

Mauffrey responded immediately to end leg one a mere half a second ahead of his rival, with Deloy 39.3 seconds back in third and Courtois just 6.4 seconds further adrift in fourth.

Leg two began with former Clio R3 France Trophy champion Mauffrey stringing together three consecutive fastest times to extend his lead to 11.9 seconds over Vaillant, who was hampered by a water leak. Though Vaillant went fastest in three of the closing stages, the nearest he got to the leader was 9.7 seconds, and by the time the last special stage came around, he opted to play it safe and settle for second.

In the battle for third Courtois edged past Deloy on SS9 before extending the gap to ensure a podium finish, while Venturini and Tozlanian took fifth and sixth respectively behind Deloy.

“I thought I was going to have a quiet weekend when Kris Princen retired, but Benoit made life difficult for me right to the end,” said a relieved Mauffrey afterwards. “It was a great race and a terrific battle all the way to the end. The spirit was good and it was a lot of fun, and that’s the way I like my sport. Our aim is to win the Renault Sport Challenge and we need to keep this up.”

For his part, Vaillant said: “We found the same pace we had in Limousin and we gave Eric a fight. There were times in the 25-kilometres special stages when there were only tenths of a second in it. We lost a little bit of time at the start of leg two because of a water leak but we’ve made pretty good progress overall, and it bodes well for the rest of the season.”

29th Rallye des Vins Mâcon
Fastest times: Eric Mauffrey 8, Benoit Vaillant 6,
Race leaders: Eric Mauffrey (SS1 to SS4); Benoit Vaillant (SS5); Eric Mauffrey (SS6 to 14 - finish).

Final standings
1. Eric MAUFFREY/Gaetan HOUSSIN: 2:02.31.6
2. Benoit VAILLANT/Henri Pierre MORIN: +0:18.7
3. Olivier COURTOIS/Kevin BRONNER: +2:16.8
4. David DELOY/Cedric OGIER: +2:30.9
5. Thierry VENTURINI/Hubert RISSER: +4:17.3
6. Damien TOZLANIAN/Florine ALPHAND: +8:47.6

2012 Renault Sport France Challenge standings (after third of six rounds)
1. Eric Mauffrey: 61 pts
2. Kris Princen: 50
3. Benoit Vaillant: 45
4. Herve Paternot and Olivier Courtois: 15
6. David Deloy: 12
7. Thierry Venturini: 10
8. Damien Tozlanian: 8