tour de corse rally

Tour de Corse: a brief history

Over its storied 56-year history, the Tour de Course has separated the men from the boys, and occasionally the men from their cars. The route’s endless switchbacks and sheer-drop verges plane the margin of error down to the molecular, and when it goes wrong – and it does go wrong – you pay. Usually with your car, occasionally with your body, and sometimes with your life.

Even since its inception it’s been a unique challenge. The Rallye de France-Tour de Corse first ran between December 17 and 18, 1956, and of the 43 competitors that started, just 24 made the finish line. Incidentally, it was won by a Belgian female crew (Gilberte Thirion and Nadège Ferrier) driving a rear-engined Renault Dauphine. Back then, though, the course wasn’t a few stages in Ajaccio - it was an entire lap of the island. 

Such was the popularity of this gently alarming, high-stakes rally that the following year its slightly re-jigged successor, the Isle of Beauty's rally, was folded into the National Grand Tourism Championship. After a several fierce battles, it was eventually won by team Altieri-Calizzi driving a Triumph TR3.

The rallies trundled on and gained local popularity, but it wasn’t until the introduction of the World Championship for Manufacturers in 1973 that it’d established its niche on the world motorsport stage - – terrifying, unforgiving, great seafood. And so it was decided, quite bizarrely, that it would became the French round of the event.

Come 1979 and the International Federation for Automotive Sports (FISA) created the World Rally Championship for Drivers, and decided that it might be nice to include the Tour de Corse in its schedule. And so, since the WRC's inception, it's become an integral part of the rallying calendar.

While the inaugural event was won by Belgians, it became a source of great national pride to keep the title in French hands. Sandro Munari, Markku Alen and Carlos Sainz won more than twenty times in total, and between 1977 and 1981 Bernard Darniche won consecutively. Didier Auriol also held on to the title six times between 1988 and 1995. The might of Colin McRae saw the French domination crumble, and Jesus Puras, Petter Solberg, and Markko Martin put a few other nationalities on the leaderboard. But then came Seb Loeb, who unsurprisingly won everything and set several course records in the process, making everyone else feel a bit bad about themselves.

But there’s an elephant in the room here. This event is also infamous for claiming lives. In fact, it has the highest fatality rate of any WRC round. Attilio Bettega, Henri Toivonen, Sergio Cresto, and Jean-Michel Argenti were killed here, which had huge ramifications on the sport. The deaths caused the end to Group B rallying – the most innovative, aggressive and technologically advanced form of the sport since its inception. Check back soon and we’ll be bringing you an exclusive gallery on the corner that killed Group B

In the meantime, click through the gallery of archive images from Tour de Corse, and then tune in to Eurosport, which is broadcasting the event - a stage of the European Rally Championship - live.

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Tour de Corse: A Historic Vehicle Rally In All Seriousness

Images: Will Broadhead

After winning for the first time in 2020, the Oreille duo of Alain and Sylvie, in their Porsche 911 Carrera RS, emerged victorious again at the 22nd edition of the Tour de Corse Historique, setting the fastest time in the last special stage to finish the rally on a high note!

The competitors in the 22nd edition of the Tour de Corse Historique left Porto-Vecchio last Tuesday and they were back in the port city on Saturday after covering the 1028-kilometre route that was 60 percent revised and included 382 kilometres of timed events divided up into 19 special stages.

Like the previous editions, the 2022 event lived up to its reputation as a historic rally that’s among the longest and the most technical on the planet, which also makes enormous demands on men and machines.

This formula has greatly contributed to its popularity with competitors and has led to ever-increasing success from year to year, setting new records for the number of participants. From 350 in 2021, the list of entries increased to 380 in 2022 with 12 nationalities, forcing the organisation to make a very difficult selection choice among the 530 entries received this year.

In line with their performance in 2020, Alain and Sylvie Oreille built their win day after day. Nursing the engine of their Porsche 911 Carrera RS prepared by the écurie Joffroy, they were always among the front-runners without taking any risks.

Then their rivals opened the door to victory for them as they dropped by the wayside either because of mechanical issues or accidents as the specials unfolded.

“We were penalised at the start of the rally because we chose tyres that were too wide,” explained the victor. “After rectifying the situation, we climbed back up the order. We had a great battle with Florent Jean (Porsche 911) and Anthony Agostini (Ford Escort MK1), but they both crashed out. Then we just controlled our race. It’s called experience! The Tour de Corse Historique is fabulous. It’s a great rally that’s a mirror image of what happened in the era of the 30-kilometre-long special stages. I’ve only taken part in one rally this year—this one.”

The runners-up in the event, Jean-Baptiste Botti/Yoann Raffaelli (Porsche 911) were also all smiles on the podium. Botti, a world Jet Ski champion on several occasions, showed that he is also a talented driver.

Last year he had already finished third in VHC and this year the youngster from Porto-Vecchio found himself on the second step of the podium on his third outing: “We ran into mechanical problems on the second and third days. Luckily, the écurie Caruso managed to carry out repairs and helped us to get up to speed in the second part of the event and clinch this great result!”

In the J2 category open to newer models, the anticipated duel between locals Tomas Argenti/Mathieu Tyran and Christophe Casanova/Stéphane Delleaux, both at the wheel of BMW M3s, unfortunately fizzled out. The triple winner of the category in 2019, 2020 and 2021 set off to try and close the 1m 24s gap to Argenti/Tyran, but was the victim of a ruptured universal joint in the first special of the day.

All Argenti/Tyran had to do was to bring their car home to the finish without errors to clinch victory in the J2 category on their second outing in the Tour de Corse Historique. “Obviously, we’re delighted. At the start of the event, we were hit by a raft of mechanical problems with our M3 BMW (ex-Pascal Trojani) in its 1995 setup that hadn’t run since 2001. We managed the race as intelligently as possible to stay in contact and then push when it was necessary. We had a rally that’s unique of its kind and has left us with extraordinary memories!” summed up the young winner.

Among the great stories of this edition, mention must be made of the Bernardini father/daughter crew who finished third in J2. Double French rally champion in 1994 and 1995 and winner of the Monte Carlo in 1996, Patrick Bernardini had not emerged from his retirement since 2010 when he made a fleeting appearance in the Tour de Corse Historique.

“For the last five years my daughter Carla has kept on badgering me for us to do this rally together,” explained Patrick. “For my 60th birthday we decided to enter. It was her first motor race! She adapted and made good progress in calling the notes through the specials. I too found my marks. Everything went off like a dream!”

Another anecdote that reveals the spirit of mutual help and sharing that reigned in this event was the one about the André Giusti/Frank Pascalini team with their Alpine A110. They suffered a broken spacer in the gearbox and as they didn’t have a spare; they owed their rescue to the generosity of Jean-Pierre Manzagol, a leading light in Corsican motor sport.

Holder of the record number of starts (29) in the same rally in the WRC, he has raced in Renault R8 Gordinis, Alpine A110s and A310s, R5 GT Turbos, Clio Williams and Peugeot 306 Maxis.

Seeing that his fellow-countryman was going to have to retire, he said he would strip down his own personal berlinetta to replace the broken part to help him to make it to the finish in Ajaccio. André Giusti obviously acknowledged his gesture when he climbed up onto the podium!

In VHRS (Historic Vehicles in Sporting Regularity—Véhicules Historiques de Régularité Sportive), Emmanuel Saussereau/Stéphane Poulard (Fiat 124 Abarth) emerged on top in the final overall classification as well as in the moderate average classification.

Etienne Baugnee/Vincent Duchesne (Ford Escort MK1 RS2000 won in the high average classification, Dominique Larroque/Patrick Monassier (Ford Escort RS2000) triumphed in the intermediate average and Alain Arnal/Denis Goudou (Morris Cooper S) in the low average classification.

And we mustn’t forget the victory in the VHRS by team classification of Team Espoir contre le cancer (Team Hope against cancer) by Bruno Saby/Pascal Serre in their VW Golf GTI.

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POV: Following 350 Rally Cars Around The Island Of Corsica

Photography by Will Broadhead

A crowd of people has gathered a thousand feet above the sea up in the hills of Porto-Vecchio, on the island of Corsica. There are taller peaks amongst the mountains that loom from the clouds, but today these are only of interest if the narrow ribbon of tarmac that constitutes a road in these highlands, passes underneath or between them.

Overhead the clouds have closed in, despite the day beginning in 26-degree heat, and the first drops of an impending rainstorm are beginning to land on on our outstretched palms. It will do little to dampen the excitement and enthusiasm here though, and in the distance there is a clue as to what the crowd has massed here for. Far off, but approaching quickly, is the unmistakable sound of a highly tuned flat-six. As it approaches, the sound of rubber looking for traction and the pop-bang of rapid gearshifts crack out through the humid air, and there are just a couple of corners before the source of the sound makes its appearance.

Phone cameras and DSLRs are raised in readiness around me, almost as quickly as the hairs stand up on my arms, and then in a rage of noise and color and blurred motion, a Porsche 911 bearing the number 1 appears on the road, scrabbling forward across the roughshod asphalt before leaping at and through the next bend before disappearing again, leaving nothing but its doppler signature and the smell of high octane fuel as an indicator that it was ever here at all. Welcome to the Tour de Corse Historique, arguably the coolest classic rally out there.

Corsica’s obsession with rallying stretches back to the first Tour de Corse, held in 1956, an event that would find itself part of the World Rally Championship for 35 years from the championship’s inception, and sporadically so ever since. So it is only natural that the island should host a classic rally that pays homage to the history that’s been made here over the decades.

The Historque version runs as the Tour de Corse used to, completing a loop of the island across five days and contested over nearly 1000km of stages. Three hundred and fifty of those kilometers are closed road special stages—18 in total—and are plotted along the same tarmac that many of the current and historical WRC stages have used and continue to use. It is a huge challenge that’s not to be underestimated for being “vintage,” for “the rally of 10,000 corners” is as much a statement of fact as it is a nickname.

And the entry list is almost as densely populated as the road book at 350 cars strong and with a list of marques that reads like a spotter’s guide of significant rally cars. Lancias of all varieties, Escorts, Alpines, Mitsubishis, BMWs, Audis, Subarus, just name it, it’s on there, including some rare objets d’arts like Mazda’s Group B RX-7 experiment nestled in amongst the more regular faces.

Then, there are the drivers themselves, with WRC stage winners, world champions, and a team of five cars run by Le Mans winner and rallying talent Romain Dumas. But for all of those in the paddock that have prestige and heritage attached to their names, there are an even greater number of people who’ve entered to test themselves against the challenging and often dangerous stages. Rallying has always been accessible relative to most high-profile motorsports disciplines, and the organization behind the Tour de Course Historique have recreated that openness with aplomb. Having spent a few days around the pits with the crews before the event got going, the air of camaraderie is self evident. People are competing, but mostly against themselves. People are talkative, welcoming, and it’s hard not to smile when everyone else is.

Once the rallying got underway on Monday (it ends this Saturday), it was clear that there was going to a group of front-runners charging as hard as possible on every stage. It reminded me of the difference between the WRC factory teams leading the way, to be followed by the local cars that make up the unsung majority of WRC contenders. The leading pack put on some great front-row action for me and the rest of the rally pilgrims   wedging and balancing themselves into any available space on the edge of the asphalt, and there was no shortage of sketchy moments for those that pushed the relationship between gumption and adhesion a little too far.

As I write this the rally is just a few days old and has traversed a route north to Borgo after the first proper day’s competition. The excitement of the paddock at Porto Vecchio has traveled along with the group, the stages littered with fans and the adjacent roadsides jam packed with support trucks, ready to service the fastest cars in the competition. There has been action aplenty already, but for me it feels like things will only get wilder as the mountains get bigger and the stages stretch longer as the route pushes west to toward Calvi. My alarm is set for 5AM, again, such is the distance that must be covered and the number of cars that must be funneled through. But I fear that despite attempting to get an early night, my sleep will be disturbed as the anticipation of another day of sensorial assault gets the better of me, again. For once, I cannot wait for my early wakeup call. More to come.

Nice cars. I like red ones. tiny fishing

just love BMW !!!! Daly

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Tour de Corse Stages

The Tour de Corse  is a  rally  first held in 1956 on the island of  Corsica . It was the French round of the  World Rally Championship  from the inaugural  1973 season  until  2008 , was part of the  Intercontinental Rally Challenge  from 2011 to 2012, and finally returned to WRC in  2015 . The rally is held on asphalt roads, and is known as the “Ten Thousand Turns Rally” because of the twisty mountain roads. 

As a rally spectator the scenary is very dramtic.

The only non-French drivers to win the event more than once are  Sandro Munari ,  Markku Alén ,  Colin McRae  and  Thierry Neuville .

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