Grégoire Munster achieved his first ever victory in the Belgian championship in the East Belgian Rally, the fourth round of the Kroon-Oil Belgian Rally Championship. With the official Hyundai i20 Rally2, the 22-year-old son of Bernard Munster dominated the 15th edition of the East Belgian Rally in the East Cantons from start to finish. An impressive premiere!
“I only hesitated for a few seconds,” the two-time Junior Champion laughed at the finish. “I started the final stage with a 9.6 second lead, but on the Bütgenbach test I pushed straight ahead in a slippery braking zone. We lost 4″6, almost halving our lead over Adrian Fernémont. When I was 2″ faster than Adrian on the next test in Amel, I knew not to worry. I have remained calm in the dark. This is fantastic,” enjoyed Grégoire Munster, who won by 3.5 over Adrian Fernémont.
The Skoda driver had mixed feelings: “I gave everything, but Grégoire was very strong all day and I may have missed a few seconds this morning. Not in the fast situations, but in slow corners, where I wasn’t precise enough. The level in the Kroon-Oil BRC is so high that the smallest details make the difference.”
Ghislain de Mevius finished third, which means he remains the leader in the championship. In short, a good result after a difficult week. “We changed the bike on Friday before the start, after a break during our test session, and the differential settings were wrong, because I had a lot of wheelspin in the corners. In those conditions I can be satisfied with third place,” concluded Ghislain de Mevius,
Vincent Verschueren ended the rally in fourth place, having completed 8 of the 12 tests with engine failures. The Volkswagen Polo GTI completed the final lap in “road mode”. Verschueren still had a sufficient margin on Sébastien Bedoret’s Skoda, who finished fifth after losing 1’45” due to a puncture on the test in Amel. On that second test, Cédric Cherain had to give up with a double puncture, while Kris Princen went off the track with the Citroën C3 Rally2 at the start of the second stage, while still battling for a podium finish.
Tobias Brüls, the 26-year-old driver from local Weywertz, was the “Best of the Rest” with CRT’s Skoda Fabia Rally2. The driver of the organizing team AMC Sankt-Vith came in sixth, ahead of Romain Delhez, authoritarian winner in the GT category with his Porsche 997 GT3. The Top 10 was completed by Harry Bouillon with his Ford Fiesta Rally2 and the two M Cup tenors Loïc Pirot, who scored his first win in the M Cup at the age of 36, narrowly ahead of Franky Boulat.
Rainer Hermann, the 63-year veteran from Sankt-Vith, who had rented a BMW M3 E30, was unmatched in the Historic section. In the Junior BRC, Thibault Mazuin achieved his first victory, after the retirement of Jonas Dewilde.
The next appointment in the Kroon-Oil Belgian Rally Championship will follow within two weeks, on 8 and 9 October in Jambes with the Rally of Wallonia.
