Rally France

Sébastien Loeb and Daniel Elena's Citroën C4 WRC in the vineyards of Alsace 2010

The Rallye France (officially Rallye de France - Alsace ) was a round of the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC). The rally organized by the FFSA took place in Alsace ( Alsace in France ). After the WRC status went back to the Corsica Rally, the rally was no longer held.

history

The 2010 Rally France was included in the ranking of the World Rally Championship as the eleventh of thirteen races. It replaced the traditional Tour de Corse as the French rally. The first Rally France was held from September 30th to October 3rd, 2010. The rally driver Sébastien Loeb , who was always leading from the start , won this rally on the final special stage 20 held in his home town of Haguenau and was the only racing driver in motorsport history to secure his seventh consecutive world title. For the French car manufacturer Citroën there was a triple victory and the sixth brand world championship to celebrate.

At the World Championship rally held in the 2011 season there was a failure of last year's winner and local hero Loeb on the third special stage. The reason was a technical problem. His teammate and compatriot Sébastien Ogier took over the lead from him. Over the course of the next two days, she switched back and forth several times between him, the mini- driver Dani Sordo and the Citroën privateer Petter Solberg . On the second day, lying on a good fourth place, the difference in the Mini WRC -propelled Kris Meeke by a crash. On the last day of the event, Ogier finally prevailed and won the overall standings with 6.3 seconds ahead of Sordo. A few hours after the rally, Petter Solberg was excluded from the event and his third place was denied. The reason was that the subsequent weighing found that his vehicle was four kilograms too light. Therefore, all drivers moved up one position from fourth place.

In 2012 and 2013 , Sébastien Loeb and Sébastien Ogier had home wins again. In 2014 , Jari-Matti Latvala was the only foreign driver to win the Rallye de France - Alsace.

The return of the WRC to Corsica

After Sébastien Loeb and Daniel Elena retired from the World Rally Championship , Loeb comes from Alsace and the number of spectators decreased noticeably in 2014 , the rally was again awarded to Corsica in 2015 . The World Rally Championship (WRC) staged a visit to Corsica between 1973 and 2008 .

Routing

The paddock with the service zone was located on the northeastern edge of the city of Strasbourg near the German border. The altogether 356 kilometers long 20 special stages were driven in the vineyards of this region, made accessible by many serpentines, uphill and downhill on the hilly forest paths and on the military training area Bitche in Lorraine. This made the characteristics of this rally very similar to Rally Germany , another round of the World Rally Championship. Since all the special stages were comparatively close to the service park, it was also one of the more compact rallies of the world championship. The route itself was covered almost exclusively on asphalt.

Overall winner

year	rally	driver	Co-driver	vehicle
2010	1st Rallye de France - Alsace	France Sébastien Loeb	Monaco Daniel Elena	Citroën C4 WRC
2011	2nd Rallye de France - Alsace	France Sébastien Ogier	France Julien Ingrassia	Citroën DS3 WRC
2012	3rd Rallye de France - Alsace	France Sébastien Loeb	Monaco Daniel Elena	Citroën DS3 WRC
2013	4th Rallye de France - Alsace	France Sébastien Ogier	France Julien Ingrassia	Volkswagen Polo R WRC
2014	5th Rallye de France - Alsace	Finland Jari-Matti Latvala	Finland Miikka Anttila	Volkswagen Polo R WRC

Individual evidence

↑ Events of the Alsace Rally (ewrc.com accessed on March 8, 2011)

↑ Rallye de France - Alsace SS20 ( Memento from May 17, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (rallyedefrance.com from October 3, 2010; accessed on March 7, 2011)

↑ Solberg's car too light ( memento of the original from October 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Rallye-Magazin.de on October 2, 2011) @1@ 2

↑ Description of some special stages (wrc.com of October 30, 2010; accessed on March 8, 2011)

Web links

Commons : Rally France - Collection of images, videos and audio files

[1] Events of the Alsace Rally (ewrc.com accessed on March 8, 2011)

[2] Rallye de France - Alsace SS20 ( Memento from May 17, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (rallyedefrance.com from October 3, 2010; accessed on March 7, 2011)