Munchi’s crew face tricky Tarmac test

A new co-driver, a new rally location and Federico Villagra’s first all-Tarmac event in twelve months could make this year’s Rallye de France the most challenging FIA World Rally Championship round to date for the Munchi’s Ford World Rally Team.

However, the Munchi’s crew will need to adapt quickly to all of those circumstances in order to close the one point gap on Henning Solberg who is ahead in the overall Drivers’ Standings.

France is the third asphalt round of this year’s WRC, but after missing the previous Tarmac events in Bulgaria and Germany Villagra will be looking to take full advantage of a pre-event test in the Ford Focus RS WRC in order to get a feel for the sealed surface as quickly as possible.

The Munchi’s Ford World Rally Team will also face another challenge next week as Villagra’s regular co-driver, Jorge Pérez Companc, is unable to contest the 11th round of the WRC due to other commitments. Diego Curletto will replace Companc as Villagra’s co-driver in France and Jose Diaz will act as Villagra’s co-driver at Rallye de España.

Curletto embarked on his co-driving career in 1998 and has been Villagra’s co-driver in Argentina since 2006 – successfully winning three National Championships and twice winning the N4 class at Rally Argentina.

“I’m delighted to welcome Diego as my co-driver in the WRC – we’ve competed in many rallies together in our home country of Argentina and the stages will be new to every WRC co-driver so this will make it a fair rally for everyone”, said Villagra. “I haven’t driven the [Ford] Focus on Tarmac since October last year so it could take a bit of getting used to handling the car on the different road surface but we’ve got a test planned for Monday so I’m hoping that will help build my confidence. I’ve been informed that the stages are very varied for this event, I think this will make set-up extremely important each day so we will have to work hard as a team to ensure this doesn’t affect our performance.”

Despite not contesting an all-Tarmac WRC event since 2009, Villagra will be aiming to improve on his previous result on asphalt when he finished eighth at last year’s RACC Rallye de España.

Next week’s Rallye de France will kick off on Thursday 30 September with a ceremonial start at Place Kleber - the largest square in the centre of Strasbourg. However, the first full day of action will commence on Friday 1 October and consists of a repeat loop of four stages totaling 145.86 km based south-west of the service park, Strasbourg Zénith. It will also include a remote service at Mulhouse after Grand Ballon 1 (SS4).

Saturday will feature eight stages covering 149.22 km which will be based south-west of the service park. The Munchi’s crew will also have to tackle the longest stage of the rally on Saturday, the 35.48 km Pays d’Ormont (SS11 and SS15).

The final day of Rallye de France features a repeat loop of two stages which consists of a short 4.20 km test (SS17 and SS20) followed by a longer 24.70 km stage.