Harry Hunt tames the 'Rally of 10,000 Corners' in his Citroen DS3 R3 scoring a successful sixth place.

British rally driver Harry Hunt has scored a successful sixth-place finish in the Intercontinental Rally Challenge 2WD Cup at the legendary Tour de Corse, putting the 22-year-old just outside the top three of the championship.

Driving his distinctive green Citroen DS3 R3, Harry tamed one of the most fearsome rallies on the calendar, run across stomach-churning mountain roads on the French island of Corsica.

The Tour de Corse is nicknamed the ‘Rally of 10,000 Corners’ in popular legend but somebody with a lot of patience once counted them all – and the true number is actually much closer to 20,000. The 14 asphalt stages consisted of hairpin bend after hairpin bend, on bumpy and tricky asphalt that has caught out some of the very best drivers in the world in the past. As one former World Champion once remarked: “If you can see a straight bit of road, you’re probably in the wrong place.”

Although it was Harry’s first time on these very specialised island stages, he was straight on the pace and battling with the local drivers in similar equipment. At the same time, the 22-year-old’s priority was to reach the finish and maintain his point-scoring record to defend the IRC 2WD Cup title that he won last year.

Harry and his new co-driver, fellow Englishman Robbie Durant, concentrated on improving their pace notes over the course of the event: the all-important instructions that the co-driver reads to the driver to help him keep the car on the road. Before the rally, Harry also benefitted from a test session together with Peugeot driver Thierry Neuville – who went on to win the rally!

“This rally was a massive adventure, covering the whole of the island in three really busy days,” said Harry at the finish. “I’ve enjoyed every minute of it: it’s so easy to see why this event has become such a legend. We had good fun with the car and we learned a lot but at the same time we wanted to make sure we finished and scored some points, which is why we didn’t push too hard. We still need to work on our pace notes and we had a couple of small mechanical mishaps that prevented us from doing even better, but it was a great experience.”

Harry was set to fight for a podium in the class until he picked up an electrical problem on Friday afternoon, which cost him several minutes in road penalties and lost time. The problem was fixed at the service halt in Corte on Friday night, but on Saturday afternoon Harry lost a couple more minutes when a brake caliper broke after he clipped a bridge.

“I’m not entirely sure if the two events were connected, but it was definitely a bit scary driving the rest of that stage with no brakes!” said Harry. “Luckily we were able to fix the car by the side of the road before heading into the next stage, and from then on it was really just a question of going as carefully as we could to the finish.”

Harry and Robbie, whose Citroen is run by the I-Cars outfit based in sunny Wales, also finished in the top 20 overall of the event: an excellent achievement for a crew who are still making their name in the sport but are firmly on the way up.

Harry’s next event takes him to the other side of the world: Rally Argentina, which forms part of the World Rally Championship. The flowing gravel roads and cool weather in Argentina could not present a bigger contrast to Corsica, so Harry and Robbie are planning a gravel test before they pack their bags once more and head for South America.

People at home can keep up with Harry’s Corsican capers through his regularly-updated Twitter feed (twitter.com/HarryHunt), his Facebook page, and live television programmes from Eurosport.

For more information on the Tour de Corse and the IRC series please visit www.rally-irc.com.

For more about Harry Hunt, and to sign up to his mailing list, please write to media@mediatica.co.uk








More...



Never pay again for live sex! | Hot girls doing naughty stuff for free! | Chat for free!