i20 N Rally2 ‘Step 2’ runs as #0 car with Kris Meeke at the wheel

Eric Camilli’s strong pace on Rallye du Var (November 22-24) went unrewarded, as a puncture kept the i20 N Rally2 driver to just a fourth place finish at the final round of the French Tarmac Rally Championship.

Camilli, with co-driver Thibault de la Haye, won half of the rally’s 12 competitive stages in his 2C Competition-run i20 N Rally2. This included four successive fastest time across the final two tests completed on Friday afternoon, and the first to stages on Saturday morning, which elevated the pair into the lead. However, on the very next stage the duo lost 50 seconds to a puncture, dropping them back to fifth overall.

They were able to make pack one position, helped by another paid of stage wins, but the gap back to the podium positions proved too large to make up in the remaining kilometres.

Fellow 2C Competition crew Laurent Pellier and Alexandre Chioso finished sixth overall. For much of the event CHL Sport Auto pairing Hugo Margaillan and Corentin Silvestre put another i20 N Rally2 in the top ten, before a small but costly problem on the final stage on Saturday dropped them down the order.

The event also saw Kris Meeke and Liam Regan share an i20 N Rally2 ‘Step 2’, running as the #0 car on the rally. Fitted with the newest development parts for the car, which are planned to be homologated for the start of the 2025 campaign the pair came away impressed with the universal step forward they felt in the handling and performance of the car, compared to the current version.