Under a bright sun and in front of a large crowd, Davy Vanneste won the Le Seau Shortrally of Monteberg. After the seven special stages, he was 26.9 seconds faster than Dutchman Sander Van Hoof who saved the family honour after his uncle Piet’s exit.
Davy Vanneste had to chase Piet Van Hoof until the 5th stage. The Ford pilot discovered why the Dutchman in his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 4 was on the Monteberg podium last year. “I heard that Van Hoof was fast in his Mitsubishi but I did not understand that Hans Weijs Jr worked so hard to pull away from Piet but today he confirmed his pace because I did not catch him,” Davy said.
After a spin for Van Hoof, Vanneste took the lead and won the SR of Monteberg. “This victory is very good because I made my rally debut 20 years at the Monteberg. I never thought I would win here 20 years later…”
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Sander Van Hoof, who finished third last year, took a deserved second place ahead of Frederic Delplace who took third in his home rally in the Porsche 997 GT3. “What an incredible machine, this Porsche,” Delplace said. “It was incredibly hard today, I am getting the hang of the car and I hope that there will be many Porsches starting in Ypres, because I am ready!”
Stefaan Stouf won the Historic category and passed Steve Becaert for fourth place in the final test and missed the podium by just 3.4 seconds.
“I could have attacked for third place but I lost time on the Monteberg stages when I was caught behind slower competitors. Maybe there was even a second place there – but of course I am very satisfied with fourth place,” Stouf said.
Claudie Tanghe finished in second place among the Porsches and in sixth place overall. “We had a couple of problems this morning and then a slow puncture on SS4 which cost us that extra time.”
Hein Jonkers was 7th ahead of Erik Moree who has learnt a lot in his second rally in the ex-De Jong Citroën DS3 R5. Yves Bruneel also enjoyed driving the Porsche 997 GT3 from Fixion. “This was a great pleasure but the switch from an R5 to a Porsche was not so easy. The R5 has a fantastic chassis and very powerful brakes but the engine is not that strong and the Porsche has a great engine. It was nice to have the extra horsepower.”
In Historic, the Brit Reddington finished second, ahead of Stefaan Prinzie.
