Nicolas Ciamin at ease at Le Touquet

The traditional resumption of the French Rally Championship (CFR) at Le Touquet, on the banks of the Côte d'Opale, is an unmissable event with a quality field: 169 starters and around ten drivers able to fight for the podium. Although the Thursday morning shakedown took place in dry conditions, the pilots expected a rally complicated by humidity, rain and dirty roads at this time of year. Already a winner twice at Le Touquet, Nicolas Ciamin clearly announced his intentions: “I am not competing in the entire French Championship this season, I am dividing my program between CFR and WRC2. The idea is therefore to win this rally, but we know that the weather conditions are unstable. » The Nice man was right!

Friday morning, all the drivers were racking their brains when choosing their tires. For his part, Ciamin opted for “rain” tires with two Soft tires as backup at the start of the rally before reversing the trend at the end of the first stage. A paid option since the driver of the Polo GTI R5 operated by Sarrazin Motorsport was going to crush this first day of the Rallye du Touquet with seven scratches out of eight possible. Ciamin confidently finished the 11,96 km of the last special of the first stage at an hourly average of 138 km/h! “We managed to open up a nice gap, but behind them they are fighting for the podium and it’s pushing hard! Tomorrow, with the arrival of the rain, everything will have to be done again. »

On Saturday, at the start of the second and final stage, the road conditions were more delicate following the nighttime showers, but Ciamin remained confident and took advantage of the first loop to gain a comfortable lead: “ We have good settings, I understood how to exploit the potential of the Polo and my openers are doing an exceptional job ". Nicolas Ciamin was able to release the pressure slightly during the last speci