Pierre Roché winner in Autun

On roads bathed in sometimes threatening skies, but ultimately spared from the rain during the race, Pierre Roché (Citroën C3 R5 – Team FJ) played the specials of “ Chestnut "On Autun, an event counting towards the French Rally Cup.

Quickly engaged in a duel with William Wagner, Roché let his rival pocket the first special before going on the offensive in SS2 and taking advantage of a stabilizer bar problem on the C3 R5 – PH Sport in SS3 to set sail for the first time.

Without giving up, Wagner began the hunt for the leader, falling back to just over six seconds at the end of the first day. If the first Sunday sector confirmed the progress of the Franco-Belgian, a loss of 8″ in the first pass of the day in the long special from Chissey-en-Morvan – Moux-en-Morvan, ruined the last hopes of the PH pilot Sport, despite a final scratch.

Roché therefore won with a 6″6 margin over Wagner, the podium being completed by Denis Millet (Skoda Fabia R5), who partly took advantage of the 40″ penalty received by Nicolas Hernandez (Skoda Fabia R5) for a score late.

Entering the top 10 in eighth position, Anthony Cosson pockets the GT classification when Hugo Bonfils places the best Alpine A110 RGT in 10th position. Yoan Corberand (Citroën C2 VTS) F2/13, Pascal Bérard (Renault Clio R3T) in R3 and Stéphane Godest (Renault Megane RS) in N4 are the other main winners of the weekend in modern.

In the French VHC Championship, Alain Oreille, aligned with a Porsche 911 from Team Joffroy, crushed the competition and was ahead of the BMW M3 – Vaison Sport of Benoît Chavet and the Ford Escort RS 1800 of François Foulon.

Discover the full report of the Rally d'Autun-Sud Morvan – La Châtaigne, in issue 2275 of AUTOhebdo, available from tomorrow evening in digital version and from this Wednesday on newsstands.