Carpooling – Didier Auriol

On the occasion of the Tour de Corse historique, spectators of the island event will be able to admire a Ford Sierra RS Cosworth which was in the heyday of the race at the end of the 80s, when Group A had just taken the lead. relay of the legendary Group B and the powerful Lancia Delta S4, Audi Quattro S1 or even Peugeot 205T16.

Among the new headliners who began to stand out at the end of Group B, Didier Auriol quickly rises among the future stars of the discipline, with one of his best enemies Carlos Sainz. Au volant de la Sierra Cosworth, les deux hommes vont démontrer à nouveau leur pointe de vitesse, avant de s’engager respectivement dans les écuries officielles Lancia et Toyota.

Auriol, winner of his first event in WRC in Corsica with the Ford, places the latter among one of his favorite cars in his career. “I will name three. First, the Lancia Delta HF Integrale from 1992, the most advanced version called “Super Delta”, because I had worked a lot on its development.

But I also had a lot of fun with the different Ford Sierra Cosworths, which were very pleasant to ride. The MG Metro 6R4, which was a Group B and which I drove in 1986, was a real bike, it was easy, you accelerated, you braked, and that was it.

Ah, I forgot: the Peugeot 206 WRC. It was a new generation car, with a much more sanitized behavior. In the days of Group A, you had to fight with the cars. Then on the WRCs of the year 2000, the engineers had worked a lot more on the distribution of masses and damping, and driving was significantly easier. It wasn't a question of electronics, rather a better designed mechanical assembly. I have never been a fan of controlled differentials, I prefer good, well-tested self-locking differentials. »

Check out our Carpooling complete with Didier Auriol, in issue n°2186 of AUTOhebdo, available now in digital version and on newsstands.