Maxrally
McLaren Formula One boss Ron Dennis used to famously point out that he felt physical pain every time that his cars failed to win a race: particularly when they finished second, because “second is first of the losers”.
Jan Kopecky is Czech. As is Skoda. That's not the only reason why he's occupied a factory seat with the Intercontinental Rally Challenge's top team for over three years, but it certainly helps.
The winner of the Tour de Corse started his driving career in a Peugeot - complete with a few essential chav accessories...
With five stage wins out of six, a successful defence of his second place and a significantly reduced margin to championship leader Andreas Mikkelsen, Jan Kopecky excelled on the final day of Tour de Corse by posting one of his best performances of his four-year stint in the IRC.
Stephane Sarrazin might not be in the victory fight on Tour de Corse – he’s the zero car driver after all – and nor is the N193 from Corte to Bastia part of the competitive route of the IRC round, but Sarrazin was mighty on the 70-kilometre stretch in the all-new Peugeot 208 R2 to earn the Drive of the Day accolade for Friday.
When Petter Solberg wrapped his Subaru Impreza round a telegraph pole in a shakedown crash before the 2003 Tour de Corse, the rising Norwegian star looked like he would be heading home before the rally had even begun.
Granted his intimate knowledge of the Corsican roads were a factor – he lives in Corte where the Tour de Corse will be based on Friday – but against the might of Basso, Mikkelsen and Sordo, Pierre Campana’s capture of his first stage victory in the IRC earned him drive of the day honours for day one.
The Tour de Corse is also known as the ‘rally of 10,000 corners’ – but that’s completely wrong as back in the 1980s somebody actually once bothered to count them all and the true figure is closer to 20,000.
