Monte-Carlo Rally – Didier Clément: “It is possible to get trapped without attacking”

Lining up two Citroën C3 Rally2s, the PH-Sport structure looks great. Inside the large workspace Guy Bottlaender ("Baumholder" for short...), the weatherman is installed with the team technicians, Enola, the daughter of Bernard Piallat (the boss) who takes care of logistics and Didier Clément. While the latter agrees that the list of entrants in the WRC2 championship could have been of a higher level, he assures that Yohan Rossel and Arnaud Dunand have not won the race for all that. " Ce rally looks so complicated that competitors can get trapped without even taking risks, he says. There are a lot of unknowns. For the first time, we will be using tires that are neither Michelin nor Pirelli. Each manufacturer has its own specificities and we will have to adapt to them. The drivers will have to change their reference in terms of grip. Even with a limited number of people, it is not impossible to be surprised.

While remaining cautious, Didier Clément believes that Léo Rossel could take advantage of this event to obtain a good result for his debut. WRC. " This edition promises to be very difficult, especially with uncertainties regarding the Hankook tires. It is not a question of the quality of the tires, but the drivers necessarily lack reference points. There are corners where they will say to themselves that they could have gone faster and others make a mistake thinking they had a margin. During our tests, we were not able to try all the conditions. We do not know how the tires will react on the ice in soft, super soft… These parameters make me very cautious. »