Rhône-Charbonnières Rally – SS8: Bonato-Boulloud take a slight breather

It was reasonable to imagine that Raphaël Astier – Denis Giraudet would take full advantage of this eighth special stage, which had a profile more suited to their Porsche Unlike in Rally2, this was not the case. On this 23,86-kilometer special stage, it was indeed the six-time French Champions Yoann Bonato and Benjamin Boulloud who set the fastest time and also gained four-tenths of a second on Raphaël Astier and Denis Giraudet, who had the second-fastest time on the stage. As a result, the overall gap is now 6,9 seconds between the two leading cars, with one more special stage to run this morning, the 21,02-kilometer Claveisolles stage. We tried to ride as well as possible here, we're doing our race, there's not much else we can do. " said the driver from Isère at the finish of this eighth special stage.

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Hugo Margaillan and Mathieu Coppa set the third fastest time on this special stage, 1,9 seconds behind Raphaël Astier and Denis Giraudet. Overall, the CHL Sport Auto duo, aboard the Hyundai The i20N Rally2 remains in third place overall, 9,1 seconds behind Raphaël Astier and Denis Giraudet, and 16 seconds behind Yoann Bonato and Benjamin Boulloud. As in the previous stage, Réhane Gany and Franck Le Floch set the fourth fastest time (+9,4 seconds ahead of Margaillan and Coppa), while Lucas Darmezin, also driving a Hyundai i20N Rally2 like Gany and Le Floch, posted the fifth fastest time, 5,5 seconds behind the driver from Réunion. The final stage of this first loop will start at 10:00 AM.

CFR – Rhône-Charbonnières Rally
The classification of SS8

The general classification after SS8