Valence
Brose Motorsport: Adventurous start for our team
The first stage on the Saturday afternoon “Montauban-sur-l’Ouvèze to Saint-André-de-Rosans” was a big challenge for our team. Over 49 kilometers with extremely slippery conditions due to packed snow had to be completed. “Our team’s service bus veered off the road on the slippery and tight mountain roads and ended up in a ditch. Thankfully, no one was injured.” says Stoschek.
“Unfortunately, my co-pilot Hanns Werner Wirth sent me in the wrong direction at a junction in the first third of the trial and we traveled 2.5 kilometers on the wrong road,” states Stoschek. “A wild effort to catch up, in which we overtook four rivals, got us back into the right position, but the time penalties were so drastic that we finished 205th out of 314 starters,” adds Stoschek.
Michael Stoschek drives his 1974 Lancia Stratos Group 4 car. The darling of the crowds, which has been excellently prepared by the Brose Motorsport crew, boasts 250 hp and won the “Monte” in the years 1975 to 1977 and 1979.
On the second special stage on Saturday afternoon from “La Motte-Chalancon to Saint-Nazaire-le-Désert” over 22 kilometers, however, everything went smoothly and the team captured the 22nd spot. On the third trial of the day, the team again had to contend with an extremely large amount of snow and ice before the race around Ardéche was called out due to total snow chaos.
“I finally had the right spikes for these conditions fitted and then the subsequent trials were unfortunately canceled due to the snow chaos,” says Michael Stoschek.
After this checkered start on the first day, our team will keep battling away. 10 stages in the French Maritime Alps are on the agenda in the coming days after yesterday’s remaining stages were canceled due to excessively heavy snowfall.
You can find the latest results here.