“Now I think we are not so crazy anymore.” It is an unusually reflective line from a rally driver standing on his first Belgian Rally Championship podium, but Davy Vanneste has never been the stereotypical full-time competitor. At 47, with a career that stretches back to the late 1990s, he has learned when to push, when to hold back, and how to let experience do some of the work that raw aggression once handled alone.
At the 66th A&D Omloop van Vlaanderen, that balance paid off. Vanneste and co-driver Denis Squedin finished third on the road in their Citroën C3 Rally2, then moved up to second in the final classification after Vincent Verschueren’s five-minute penalty. It marked Vanneste’s first-ever BRC podium, a milestone that arrived 25 years after he was crowned Belgian Citroën Saxo champion and junior runner-up in 2001.
“We lacked a little bit on the knowledge”
The Omloop is a rally of contradictions: fast, flowing tarmac interspersed with tight, slippery sections where the surface can change every few hundred metres. For Vanneste, a local based just half an hour from Roeselare, it should be familiar territory. In reality, it is not.
“I live here nearby,” he says. “But to be honest, in the year I never take these small roads. I take the highway for my job or something, but I don’t pass on these rally stages. All the rallies here are on the same corner, but all the rallies are very specific and different. They all have this typical characteristic, things. And here it’s very slippery and the tarmac is always changing. Every half kilometre you have other tarmac and it’s very complicated. So you need a lot of experience to go very fast.”
That experience was crucial in Roeselare. Vanneste admits the crew lacked some stage knowledge compared to the front-runners, having last contested the Omloop in 2012–2014. When the times went on the board, the gap to the leaders was bigger than he had hoped.
“It’s true, it was since 2012–2014 that we didn’t drive here. So we lacked a little bit on the knowledge of the stages before the race,” he explains. “We were a little bit surprised that the gap was so big with Vincent. Honestly, I think we are at the right, correct place: the third place. We couldn’t compete with Bjorn and Vincent, so we are happy in one way, but on the other hand a little bit not so happy with the big gap.”
From “crazy” 20-year-old to calculated campaigner
Vanneste’s career reads like a map of Belgian and European club rallying. He cut his teeth in the late 1990s, progressed through the national junior ranks, and hit an early peak in 2001: Belgian Citroën Saxo champion and BRC junior runner-up. He sampled the Renault Clio Cup in France, contested rallies across the region, and built a reputation as a quick, consistent driver who could extract performance without throwing the car into every hedge.
Life, work and family inevitably took priority. Rallies became selective appearances rather than a full campaign. Yet the speed never fully disappeared, and the results – particularly on familiar Flemish tarmac – remained respectable. The Omloop podium is the clearest sign yet that Vanneste has found a formula that works: fewer events, smart preparation, and a calm head when the roads get nasty.
“Sometimes it’s fun to look back through a driver’s career,” he says. “I’m 47 now, and for sure we enjoy the moment now. But we think back – not a lot of times, but sometimes – to these years when we were 20 years old and we were very crazy in the head. We were driving all these championships and the Clio Cup in France and so on.”
He pauses, then adds the line that sums up his current approach: “But now I think we are not so crazy anymore. Meaning that we think a little bit if everything go very fast, and we compensate with the experience.”
A podium that means more for being rare
In a season where the headline story was Verschueren’s penalty and Bjorn Syx’s first BRC win, Vanneste’s result could easily be overlooked. But for a driver who competes only a handful of times a year, standing on a BRC podium against full-time Rally2 crews is no small feat.
It is also a reminder that Belgian rallying still has room for the privateer who knows his limits. Vanneste did not try to match the outright pace of Syx and Verschueren; he drove to his own rhythm, kept the Citroën C3 Rally2 out of trouble, and let the championship’s late drama promote him into the runner-up spot.
For a man who once chased titles across borders and classes, this podium feels different. It is not about proving he can still be “crazy” fast. It is about proving that experience, patience and smart event selection can still deliver a career highlight – even 25 years after a first national crown.
What’s next?
Vanneste does not hint at a full BRC campaign in 2027. More likely is what has worked in recent years: a handful of selected rallies, a focus on events where the car and conditions suit, and perhaps another shot at the Omloop, where the mix of slippery tarmac and changing surfaces plays to his strengths.
For now, he is content to let the moment sink in. A local driver, on local roads, on a local podium: not the loudest story of the weekend, but one of the most meaningful.
By Sam Tickell. www.racerviews.com
