The Ardennes weekend belonged to two men: a local who finally claimed the win he had been chasing for years, and a Namur-based engineer quietly rewriting what an efficient top-line rally season can look like. Between them, Bastien Rouard and Thibaud Mazuin turned the 72nd Rallye des Ardennes into a case study in control, patience and overcomging difficult weather!
Home roads, finally conquered
From the first stage to the last, the story at the front was disarmingly simple: Bastien Rouard led, and never really let the rally out of his hands. The 37‑year‑old from Ciney, in a Citroën C3 Rally2 he had only just committed to for the event, drove a clean, almost minimalist rally to take his first win in the Belgian championship – and with it, the early lead in the Kroon‑Oil BRC
His main rival, Cédric Cherain, disappeared from the equation almost as soon as the race began, sliding off on a heavily snow‑covered second stage. In his absence, the pressure on Rouard shifted from outright speed to something more subtle: the need to manage expectations in a rally he calls home. “I grew up on these roads and I’ve already finished second here three times,” he said afterwards. “We decided this week to start with the Citroën C3 Rally2 and I really liked it. I had to adapt my driving a bit, because the C3 needs a very clean and efficient style. From the second loop, when Cherain retired, I controlled the rally. I deliberately gave away some time on Fonds de Leffe, where the risk of punctures was high. This win feels incredibly good.”
The idea of control ran like a thread through his Sunday. Rouard and co‑driver Dimitri Debuisson knew when to push – enough to keep the field at arm’s length – and when to under-drive the car to protect the result. It was not a victory built on a single spectacular moment, but on a sequence of sound decisions under changeable skies.facebook+1
Behind him, the future was quietly arriving. Thomas Martens, 19 years old and on his first visit to the fast Dinant stages, was the only driver to take three fastest times away from Rouard and converted that speed into a confident second place on his Ardennes debut. The Hasselt driver’s result also lifted him to third in the championship behind Rouard and Cherain. “I’m very happy with our performance and the three fastest times,” he said. “It was my first time on these fast stages and I really liked the route. Winning the ‘AC Tronics Driver of the Day’ award on top of the result makes it even better.”
The final podium place went to Steven Dolfen, who spent the closing loop fending off a concerted attack from Emile Breittmayer and Jourdan Serderidis. After the frustrations of Haspengouw, the result felt almost unexpected. “After the disappointment there, I didn’t see this coming, especially with no experience on these stages,” he said. “In the snow this morning it was just survival, but after that it went really well. I’m very happy.”
Weather, risk and the second layer
If Rouard’s rally was about measured risk at the front, the fights behind him were about knowing when not to take it. Breittmayer, in the lead Citroën behind Dolfen, pushed in the closing stages but chose not to turn the chase into a lottery. “I came here to score points, so I didn’t want to take excessive risks,” he said. “The changeable weather with sudden showers didn’t help us either. Congratulations to Steven – he certainly didn’t get that third place for free.”
Jourdan Serderidis eventually had to cede in the dark to Breittmayer’s Citroën, but still left Dinant with a trophy: he topped the BRC Master Cup, beating Richard Pex, whose Skoda completed a clean, error‑free run to sixth. It was a typical Serderidis weekend – pragmatic, competitive, and aware that rallying at this level is as much about slotting a result into a busy life as it is about chasing every last tenth.
Beyond the RC2 fight, the event also crowned class winners who tell their own stories about where Belgian rallying sits now. In Historic, Geoffrey Watremez once again set the standard, winning with his Ford Escort RS1800 ahead of reigning champion Thomas Carlier. Benoit Wauthier, the only Junior on the entry list, took his first national‑level victory, while the 2WD Trophy fell – just – to Dylan Henrard, who edged Olivier Leroy by two seconds after a tense, day‑long battle.
Division 2 as a modern compromise
For all Rouard’s control at the front, the most quietly modern storyline of the weekend sat a few places further back on the road. Rallye des Ardennes was also the opening round of the Kroon‑Oil Belgian Rally Championship’s Division 2, the parallel series in which Rally2s and GTs do not score points, and it was here that Thibaud Mazuin reshaped his season.
The weather, again, did its part. A mix of showers and wet snow on the early tests left little room for front‑wheel‑drive heroics; in such conditions, four‑wheel drive was always going to dominate. That handed an immediate structural advantage to Mazuin, the only driver starting in a Rally3 – a Renault Clio prepared by PTR Racing – and the quickest of the non‑Rally2 pack all day. It was, on paper, a surprising choice for a 31‑year‑old who had spent the previous four seasons in a Skoda Fabia Rally2.
His explanation was refreshingly straightforward. “Because of my demanding professional life I’ve decided to do fewer rallies,” he said. “So it made more sense to swap the Rally2, which needs more rhythm and kilometres to fight at the front, for a Clio Rally3. It’s still a 4×4, but with a bit less power and a much more reasonable budget. I’ve ordered a new Clio, but it wasn’t ready yet, so we used a PTR Racing car here. I really liked it. It took a little time to get used to the narrower chassis, but I had fun. In the snow at Chevetogne we even set the fourth fastest time overall and I caught Richard Pex, but unfortunately that time was cancelled.”
Mazuin stayed in the wake of Pex to finish seventh overall and secured a dominant Division 2 win, effectively running his own pace band between the Rally2s and the leading Rally4s. It is the sort of compromise that feels very 2026: competitive, but calibrated around work, time and cost rather than pure technical escalation.
The front‑wheel‑drive thread
Behind Mazuin, last year’s Division 2 winner Corentin Fiasse finished second in class, 1 minute 23 seconds back, but emerged as the benchmark in Rally4 with his Peugeot 208. “I’m very happy with our rally,” he said. “Against Mazuin’s 4×4 we just had no chance. All day we had a great fight with Yohan Burlet and Nicolas Vanderweerde.” Fiasse also produced one of the standout times of the day in the snow at Chevetogne, a reminder that the right moment in the right conditions still allows the lighter cars to punch above their weight.
Yohan Burlet, second last year on Rallye de Wallonie, completed the Division 2 podium – an elegant result for a driver who only returned to competition last season after an eight‑year break, now in an Opel Corsa Rally4. Nicolas Vanderweerde, adapting to a Clio Rally4 for the first time this weekend, handled the transition well and finished just ten seconds behind Burlet, a margin that hints at future, season‑long battles rather than a one‑off skirmish.
The rest of the top ten in Division 2 told a familiar rally story of narrow escapes and small failures with long consequences. Valentin Dozot, one of the pre‑event outsiders with his Peugeot 208 R2, took fifth after surviving a high‑speed moment in fifth gear on Fonds de Leffe with only his luck and the geometry of the verge to protect him. On the final stage, he gained the position as Tobi Vandenberghe’s BMW 132i developed alternator belt issues when a pulley broke, costing him power steering and performance just as the finish ramp came into view.
“In the dry we might have been able to have our say in Division 2,” Vandenberghe reflected. “In the rain I had too little grip and too little knowledge of the stages. On the last stage the pulley broke, the alternator belt came off, we lost the power steering and some power. Luckily the engine survived. Thanks to David Dardenne for making sure we still reached the finish podium.”
Just behind them, Jérôme Clément used the day to discover his new Mitsubishi Lancer Evo9 and came home seventh in class. Dylan Henrard sealed the 2WD Trophy win ahead of Olivier Leroy, while Nicolas Kielbasa guided his newly acquired Mini Cooper S to a neat 10th place in Division 2 in front of his home crowd.
For Rouard, Mazuin and the cluster of names around them, Ardennes 2026 felt like more than another line in the results column. It was proof that Belgian rallying can still offer a local hero his long‑awaited home win, while also giving space to drivers building more bespoke, carefully balanced programmes – the kind of thinking that would not look out of place in a Monocle profile on how to go racing without losing sight of the rest of life.
