Solans shines in Corsican Junior WRC opener
The 2017 FIA Junior World Rally Championship got off to a sunny start as super Spaniards Nil Solans and Miki Ibanez shone brightest to take victory on the opening round at the Che Guevara Energy Drink Tour de Corse this weekend. They won four of the 10 stages and finished 43.5 seconds ahead of Nicolas Ciamin to take an early nine-point series lead.
The new-look championship, backed by tyre manufacturer DMACK, saw drivers battle in identical Ford Fiesta R2T rally cars for the huge prize of a full season in WRC 2. The world’s top young rally talent fought it out from the opening test on the Mediterranean island of Corsica with three different drivers taking stage victories.
Solans used his superior experience to lead the rally from start to finish. He opened up a 40.1s overnight lead after day one and controlled the pace to the end, scoring four extra points for stage victories along the way.
He was chased for much of the event by French pairing Terry Folb and Christopher Guieu who steadily got faster over the three-day rally as they become better acquainted with the Fiesta and it’s all-new DMACK tyres. Despite also claiming four fastest times, Folb couldn’t reel in Solans and a final-day broken driveshaft saw him drop over three minutes and fall back to third.
That let 19-year-old Nicolas Ciamin and co-driver Tibo de la Haye into second after a mistake-free weekend. They were unbeaten on two speed tests to hold third for much of the event but Folb’s problem elevated Ciamin to a career-best result.
German Julius Tannert finished fourth with Dennis Rådström fifth and top Rookie on his WRC debut. William Wagner was the only retirement after crashing his Fiesta on Saturday — he will remain in hospital for a few days for medical checks.
Dubbed the ‘rally of 10,000 corners’, the Tour de Corse was a tough opening event for many of the Junior WRC drivers. Soaked in warm, spring sunshine throughout the weekend, the mountain roads remained dry but corner-cutting dragged out mud and gravel.
The stages were difficult to make pacenotes for and more experienced asphalt drivers excelled. Competitors used a completely new range of DMACK tyres, upgraded with a number of performance enhancements, which proved to be extremely competitive for the R2 machines.
The prize structure of this year’s Junior WRC sees events paired together with the driver scoring the most points over each pair of events winning two prize drives in next year’s WRC 2. An additional prize event will be handed to the championship winner.
Maciek Woda, M-Sport’s Junior WRC manager, said: “I’m extremely pleased that almost everyone finished without any major issues and we all hope that William makes a quick recovery. There was fantastic competition between Nil Solans and the French drivers and we saw a number of other drivers with great potential so we’re certainly in for an exciting season.”
Dick Cormack, DMACK managing director, said: “The opening Junior WRC round demonstrated that our new 16” asphalt tyre is a massive step forward in performance and is a class-leading product for R2 cars. Once again the championship is set to provide a season of close competition and congratulations must go to Nil and Miki for a fantastic victory in Corsica.”
Commenting, the top drivers said:
Nil Solans: “We went fast from the start to establish a gap and then aimed to just maintain that. It was about driving an intelligent rally, we drove fast when we needed to and were cautious when it was tricky. The long stages were tough, difficult to get right, but we are both very happy with this result and to get the championship off to the best possible start.”
Terry Folb: “I came here to fight for the win and we were fastest over the stages on Saturday to close the gap to Solans. This morning I was pushing hard to get first place but the transmission problem today was disappointing. It was good to hold on to third and, with four fastest stage times, we have also shown that we have the pace to win.”
Nicolas Ciamin: “It has been a difficult rally but we concentrated on having a clean drive and not making any mistakes. When things felt good we also pushed harder and that strategy paid off. It was unlucky for Terry but second is a fantastic result for us.”
