Road rallies – 8th Corsica rally: Velardi Day! – Day race

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8th Corsica rally: Velardi Day !

Road rallies - 8th Corsica rally: Velardi Day! - Day race

Christophe Velardi, imperial at home on the handlebars of his Ducati 1200 Multistrada, left no chance for the mainlanders and won the Corsican event of the 2014 French rally championship. The championship is in full swing… Report.

Day race

The sun is indeed present this morning and after the start of the Yamaha MT09 of Team 2B / Deletang n ° 1 ridden by the official Yamaha rider Julien Toniutti, the starts follow one another for the 91 registered riders..

Certainly already affected by the heat which rises quickly or can be moved by this paradisiacal getaway in Corsica, Laeticia Maillard, charming pilot of the MV Agusta 675 Brutale n ° 40 of the Team des Galinettes, leaves forgetting her time card !

Quickly stopped by the cries of the spectators, she will recover it in extremis before continuing on her journey.

Three short quarters of an hour after the start, the pilots arrive at the Urbalacone special for the first time of the day.

Luc Deiana opens the ball on the handlebars of his Honda 450 CRM and gives himself the best time in 1’46.49, 95 hundredths ahead of another island rider, out of the championship: Thomas Verdoni at the controls of a Honda 1000 CBR RR … Third stopwatch for the Ducati 1200 Multistrada of Christophe Velardi.

A short connection then leads the pilots to the second special, Cognocoli – Monticchi, the "very" fast and the longest (4.4 km against 2.6 km for Urbalacone).

Here it is Christophe Velardi and his Ducati 1200 Multistrada n ° 18 who are leading the way in 2’45.84! Luc Deiana follows him almost 3 seconds behind in 2’48.63. Third time for Laurent Filleton on Aprilia 1000 Tuono in 2’49.88.

Second on the mainland, Julien Toniutti is fifth in this special in 2’52.60 (Thomas Verdoni’s Honda 1000 CBR RR was inserted with the fourth time in 2’52.06). the official Yamaha rider may start to worry: Laurent Filleton is in second place in the provisional championship, 16 points behind Julien, and could very well take the lead after this Corsican event…

This first passage in this second special will unfortunately be the scene of a first heavy crash: Rene Diaz, driver of the Kawasaki 650 ER6 n ° 131, makes a mistake and takes off…

The race is stopped before the passage of the sixty remaining drivers. The evacuation of the injured (who suffers from an open fracture in the ankle) delays the race and the few pilots passed before are neutralized during the return to Porticcio.

But a heavy second will accentuate this delay: Jean-Pascal Cousin, pilot of a Honda 450 HM, also puts on one … Evacuated by helicopter, he presents a head trauma but will finally get out without too much damage. Jean-Pascal had set the fourth fastest time on the first special…

This interlude at least made it possible to take stock for the drivers in the hunt for the title: Julien Toniutti is more than 8 seconds behind Christophe Velardi, leader of the rally, and 3 big seconds behind Laurent Filleton, his main opponent for the championship.

As for the categories, it is the debacle for the Monos: the Honda 450 CRM of Luc Deiana "smokes" the competition! Florent Derrien, leader of the championship category, is not having a good day: "it must be because my tires are new and badly broken in, I am not well", he admits to MNC … His 24th and 15th times in the first two specials indeed confirm his bad feelings !

In the sidecar, on the other hand, the Bruno Marlin / Diana Rauch crew are celebrating at the controls of their Choda-Benelli 1130 TNT: although obtaining places in the 50/60 scratch, they dominate the small category of the three sidecars present on this event.

Everything is finally in order when it comes to putting the race back in place and the start for the second loop is given, almost an hour and a half later. But the intervention on Jean-Pascal Cousin’s accident will take longer than expected and in total, nearly three hours will be lost. !

On the second lap of the Urbalacone special, Luc Deiana hit the nail on the head in his Honda 450 CRM and posted the best times in 1’44.80. He is followed by Thomas Verdoni on Honda 1000 CBR RR in 1’46.64 and Aprilia 1000 Tuono of Laurent Filleton (1’47.11). Fourth time for Christophe Velardi on Ducati 1200 Multistrada (1’47.25), which comes in front of the Yamaha MT09 Team 2B / Deletang of Julien Toniutti (1’48.71).

On the Classics side, too, the battle is raging: Nick Ayrton (Suzuki 1100 GSXR n ° 160) stands up to the assaults of the islander Antoine François Caviglioli (Honda 600 Dominator). Both almost 20 seconds off the best time, they obtained the 51 and 53rd scratch times … Philippe Thoumelin completed the trio of fossils riding his Honda 650 Dominator by securing the 55th time, just a few tenths behind Antoine François…

We are back in Cognocoli – Monticchi for special 4. Christophe Velardi reiterates and obtains again the best times of this special, as during the first passage, in 2’46.04 on the handlebars of his Ducati 1200 Multistrada. Second time three small tenths behind for the Honda 1000 CBR RR of Thomas Verdoni (2’46.38). Luc Deiana (Honda 450 CRM) takes the third fastest time in 2’48.86.

Back in Porticcio, the organization decides to remove the last loop of the four scheduled for the day: the delay incurred so far would cause a too late arrival before the departure for the night stage..

After the assistance at the end of the loop, it is therefore for a last daytime lap that the competitors set off successively under oppressive heat..

Last day in Urbalacone: Luc Deiana and his Honda 450 CRM once again set the best time (1’44.78), while Christophe Velardi (Ducati 1200 Multistrada) is second in 1’46.84. Thomas Verdoni is in third position on his Honda 1000 CBR RR in 1’47.77. Laurent Filleton (Aprilia 1000 Tuono) and Julien Toniutti (Yamaha MT09), here respectively fourth and sixth, are racing in the race and trying to save the furniture…

Cognocoli – Monticchi, last daytime passage: Velardi, Verdoni, Deiana! The three Corsicans in the first three places (we expected it …) and Laurent Filleton, first continental, fourth…

Bad plan for the sidecars in this last special of the daytime stage: Michel Cheylan and Philippe Szendroi on their Hyperside 1199 Ducati Choda, who quietly secured the points for third place for the French championship in this event where only three sides -cars are racing, making a spectacular exit from the road. The crew is unharmed, but the side is broken and it is abandonment…

At the end of the stage break, we do the accounts: in the daytime stage classification, the first three places are occupied by native island riders (first Christophe Velardi (Ducati 1200 Multistrada), second Luc Deiana (Honda 450 CRM) and third Thomas Verdoni (Honda 1000 CBR RR), but things were heating up behind Laurent Filleton (Aprilia 1000 Tuono) was fourth at 14.52 seconds, and Julien Toniutti (Yamaha MT09 Team 2B / Deletang) fifth more than eight seconds behind Laurent Filleton.

Christophe Velardi, an island pilot, also competes in the French championship in its entirety. Ranked fifth in the provisional before Corsica, it is likely to rise strongly in the ranking !

"I am still surprised to be the strong man of this stage", admits the number 18 questioned by MNC:"the stages, especially that of Cognocoli, wider than usual in Corsica, suit me really well! A real road bike is to its advantage here !"

The man of the day takes the opportunity to share his impressions of the race with us: "the delay incurred in no way destabilized me, on the contrary, it allowed me to rest in complete relaxation. I was thus able to understand the whole race of the day without stress! As for the championship, if my calculations are correct and everything goes well, I should be able to climb two places in the provisional"…

His objectives for the night stage: to materialize this rise in points in the championship, but also to finish in front of his friend Luc Deiana! "Here in Ajaccio, I have the fight with Luc at heart that I must win, but my goal is of course the championship podium.".

Marcus HIMSELF

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