Bernard Piallat (PH Sport): “The timing is extremely short”

The World Rally Championship is currently experiencing what is probably one of the biggest "tunnels" in its modern history. Just two weeks after tasting the Croatian asphalt, it's in the Canary Islands that the WRC Circus has set up camp to contest the fifth round of the season this weekend. But in just two weeks, Matosinhos, Portugal, will host the sixth round of the championship, a frantic schedule of three races on two different surfaces to be contested in the space of just one month. Let's be clear: this calendar presents a logistical challenge for the teams involved in this championship, as confirmed by Bernard Piallat, head of the PH Sport team, which fields the official Lancia Ypsilon Rally2 HF Integrale cars. "The timing is extremely tight; it's not great if something goes wrong.""He told us. The mere fact of having left the previous leg to reach the Canary Islands was already a challenge." "On Monday morning after Croatia, our drivers were on the road to return to southern Spain, to Huelva, to board the boat arranged by the organizers on Thursday afternoon.".

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No room for error between Croatia and the Canary Islands

The timing was extremely tight, and could have become even more complicated had problems arisen on the Rijeka side: “Fortunately, everything went perfectly for us in Croatia, but if we had encountered problems, we would have had to bring parts down from our workshop in Langres, have all our vehicles cross paths around Nîmes or Montpellier, in order to make the exchange and head towards the Canary Islands.”, he explains. “The difficulty with having to take a boat is that we have no room for maneuver. For example, last year before Greece, we knew early enough that the ports were blocked in Italy, so we were able to find an alternative route by road by sending other drivers to Hungary to arrive on time. When you have road solutions, you always end up making it happen. Here, there's no possibility of reaching the Canary Islands by road, so everything has to go perfectly.”Once they arrived in Las Palmas, the challenge was far from over, as early as last Sunday, the practice session of the rally took place.

Their eyes were already fixed on Portugal

The Canary Islands Rally has not yet started, but logistics are already on everyone's minds in order to be able to return to Portugal. “We will take the boat back after the rally to arrive in Huelva on Tuesday, then we will go to Porto and Matosinhos and we will put the cars in gravel configuration.”. For this, and since space is necessarily limited in the trucks used for this triple move, ingenuity is once again required. “On Monday, a vehicle will leave Langres containing all the parts for the dirt, as well as rims, and will deliver everything to Portugal.”To minimize time wasted when changing car configurations, the delivered parts will be pre-assembled: "In the workshop, we have already assembled the complete sub-assemblies, the cradles, the triangles, the pivots... This will facilitate assembly on the cars in Portugal."Let us recall, for all practical purposes, that PH Sport was also present between these two events at the French Rally Championship on the Rhône-Charbonnières Rally.

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A logistical, human and financial challenge for the WRC participants

"Our structure is designed to absorb this workload, and I am fortunate to have motivated and dedicated colleagues, but this is still a real challenge."Bernard Piallat explains. With a major regulatory overhaul in the WRC just a year away, which is also intended to limit costs for the teams involved, such a sequence of events can legitimately raise questions. “During this period, and especially according to our schedules, we tie up cash: a car that is on the other side of the world, as was the case for example in recent years during tours in South America, leaves very early in the year by boat and returns very late. During that time, we cannot use it.”he concluded. A real challenge, and one that should be appreciated for what it is…