Quentin Gilbert gives up on the WRC

Quentin Gilbert will not complete his program in WRC 2. While he occupied sixth place in the Championship, 13 points from the top three, the Frenchman preferred to end his season to concentrate on next year and will therefore not be at the start of the Rally of Catalonia (Spain) next week.

“The reasons are above all budgetary, explains Quentin Gilbert. We started our program knowing that we would still have to find something to complete the season. But this did not materialize and I made the decision to leave it there. Of course, we could still aim for the final podium of the WRC 2 championship, but that would not have changed anything for my future. So I preferred to end this season to work better on 2018.”

Quentin Gilbert has started five WRC 2 events this season. His best result of the year will remain a second place won at the Rally Finland with his Skoda Fabia R5.

“I think my career in the World Championship ends there. We have to be realistic: the budgets necessary to ride in good conditions are increasingly important... and it is more and more difficult to find partners. In addition, categories like WRC 2 suffer from a cruel lack of visibility compared to the big WRCs. I have no regrets, because we did everything to try to break through at the highest level.”, adds Quentin Gilbert.

The 28-year-old French driver now plans to turn to the French Rally Championship.

“My ambition will be to compete in the French Championship with the title as my objective, confirms Quentin Gilbert. The R5 category continues to develop and I find that it makes the French Championship more attractive. For a relatively reasonable budget, you can aim for absolute victory in great events and win a recognized title at the end of the season. You only need to look at the list of French Champions to understand the prestige of this competition. Finally, a national championship is more in line with the objectives of my partners. »