Jérôme Galpin: “The main thing is that we have races”

You are fully engaged from the first week of deconfinement!

Yes, we have just finished two days of testing at our usual rally bases, around Blois and Vendôme. This was done in compliance with the rules, in a small committee with just the people concerned. We continue to develop the program Alpine rally alongside Signatech, I was also at the wheel of the A110 development.

We also had our own car and also two new ones which were taking their first laps with their owners. That was 4 Alpine on the track, it was quite nice.

Is the horizon for the resumption of rallying Mont-Blanc in September?

According to the latest notifications from the FFSA, it seems that the rally competition could start at the beginning of August. The Montagne Noire rally, at the end of July, still appears on the French Division 2 championship calendar.

This same weekend, we had also scheduled a participation in the rally ERC di Roma, which still appears on this date in the latest calendar published by Eurosport Events. If all goes well, it should really start again at the end of July-beginning of August.

About the Nascar Whelen Euro Series, how does the calendar overhaul look?

We worked a lot on it during this confinement period. We were thus able to secure the dates of five meetings out of the initial seven. We are still waiting a little for the last two, particularly with the United Kingdom where the situation is still uncertain.

With regard to our partner circuits, we are also awaiting a publication of the calendars F1 et Moto GP to make a global announcement immediately. It's better to wait until everything is in place.

We must also ensure that one of our prestigious competitors, Jacques Villeneuve, is also available depending on his F1 obligations with Canal+! But I can already announce that the Nascar season will resume at the beginning of September.

What reception did the e-racing races that were set up during confinement receive?

Very good ! We initially had quite a few drivers equipped to compete virtually in Europe, but we saw a wave arrive which overwhelmed us a little. A server can accommodate around sixty competing cars; We therefore thought we had some margin, but we ended up having to establish a qualifying system to limit the competitors, from the second event.

We had 80-90 requests, and only internally since the idea was to only concern our teams and our drivers. All the teams had at least one representative, it was a enthusiasm that allowed us to keep in touch, to really start the season together.

During confinement, the races took place every week; now that everyone is going to regain some of their activities, we will move on to every two weeks. This pace should take us until mid-summer, and from there the “real world” testing programs will take over.

The Nascar Cup Series will be the first discipline to resume after global confinement, starting this weekend. What does this inspire you?

I think that at their level, it makes sense. The events concerned are in North Carolina: it is organized so that teams, media and officials can travel for one day since 95% of the Nascar industry is based north of Charlotte.

There will therefore be no hotel constraints: people will leave home in the morning and return in the evening. So, of course, the competition format doesn't make room for testing, for qualifying, but I think the main thing is that we have races, because that's what we all expect.

Furthermore, for us, it is a big advantage since we will benefit from their expertise and their feedback when it is our turn to resume. We will have all the feedback on the health procedures, what worked and what did not work, what needs to be improved… It is a basis on which we will have to build.

This will be an asset when we leave. Because we can't wait to leave, and we're crossing our fingers that everyone follows the instructions so that everything goes as smoothly as possible and that the end of the lockdown is successful. We set out to live a little longer than expected with rules for living well together, and we will have to respect them to rediscover our passion.