Astier Leads on Tour Debut

4 hours ago

5 min read

Raphaël Astier made a dream start to his first Tour de Corse Historique, ending Tuesday's opening stage in Calvi at the top of the leaderboard. Partnered by Denis Giraudet in a Porsche 911 RS (#10), the French Rally Championship leader holds a 2s advantage over Tom and Tristan Pieri (BMW M3 # 12), with Julien Saunier and Frédéric Vauclare (Renault 5 Maxi Turbo # 2) a further 6s back. A total of 446 cars took the start of the 26th edition.

Competition

Notre-Dame-de-la-Serra is one of the great names of Corsican rallying, and it made the perfect curtain-raiser. Run in its traditional Calvi-to-Argentella direction, as it has been for the past 25 years, the 13.653 km stage clings to the cliffs, with ochre rock on one side and low parapets above the Mediterranean on the other. The same scenery features on this year's event poster, with Calvi's citadel in the distance, and it drew huge crowds in the sunshine.

Astier and the Pieris could not be split there, both stopping the clocks in 7m50s, an average of 104.6 km/h. It echoed 2025, when Olivier Capanaccia and Bertrand Fassio also began in a dead heat. For Astier, it was a remarkable debut. The two-time French two-wheel-drive champion (2023, 2025) arrived expecting to "struggle a bit at first" as he adjusted to the 911's manual gearbox after a season of paddle shifts in his modern Porsche. Instead, he went joint-fastest first time out, despite an exhaust that worked loose in the opening kilometres.

The second test, Argentella - Fango (12.346 km), was a different proposition: bumpy, broken asphalt that punished the cars and demanded a firm hand. Saunier and Vauclare set the pace in 8m25s, 2s quicker than the Pieris, while Astier kept his lead. Saunier admitted he had nursed the car through a stage he feared for punctures and mechanical damage. That makes the result all the more encouraging for the Renault 5 Maxi Turbo, reworked over the winter after steering problems spoilt its 2025 run.

Behind the leading trio, Thomas Argenti and Meryl Giraldo (BMW M3 # 8) are fourth, 22s off the lead. 2021 winners Christophe Casanova and Stéphane Delleaux (Porsche 911 RS # 4) are fifth, one second ahead of Maxime Rizzo and Enzo Mahinc (Porsche 911 RSR # 250). Bertrand Fassio and Jean-François de Montredon (Porsche 911 RS # 9) hold seventh from Tanguy Tailler and Julien Jaime (Porsche 911 SC # 18), while the Lancia Deltas of Didier Auriol / Fabrice Gordon (# 3) and Yoann Bonato / Benjamin Boulloud (# 6) are separated by a single second.

Raphaël Astier (Porsche 911 RS # 10): "Two pretty decent times to start with. The exhaust came loose quite early in the first stage, so at times I could hardly hear my co-driver. I didn't get to enjoy the view, but the start runs through some stunning gorges with the parapet above the sea. There were lots of people out, the car was echoing off the rock faces and the sound was unbelievable. The second stage was harder work: bumpy and really beaten up, so you had to hang on to the car. Fortunately it's a long rally, so we've got time to get to know it."

Tom Pieri (BMW M3 # 12): "It's great to be up there, because we had plenty of doubts like everyone. It was really difficult: the car was sliding everywhere, there was no grip at all and I never found my rhythm, so I'm surprised it went this well! In historic rallying every car is different and there are some big names here, so you never really know where you stand. To be up there with Raphaël Astier, ahead of Yoann Bonato and Didier Auriol, is crazy! But it's 2 stages out of 19, so it doesn't mean anything. It's good for morale, that's all."

Julien Saunier (Renault 5 Maxi Turbo # 2): "The first stage was magical, with the sun beating down and huge crowds along the road. We've fixed everything that held us back last year and the car is close to perfect. It can do things I don't yet know how to ask of it! It's frustrating, but it's the complete opposite of anything I've driven before, so I need to build up kilometre by kilometre to understand it."

VHC classification

Astier / Giraudet (Porsche 911 RS n°10) en 16'15
Casanova / Delleaux (Porsche 911 RS n°4) à 28''
Rizzo / Mahinc (Porsche 911 RSR n°250) à 29''

Outright classification

Astier / Giraudet (Porsche 911 RS n°10) en 16'15
Pieri / Pieri (BMW M3 n°12) à 2''
Saunier / Vauclare (Renault 5 Maxi Turbo n°2) à 8'

Régularity

In the Regularity category (VHRS), Christophe Baillet and Jean-Marc Piret (Porsche 911 # 332) set the early benchmark. Winners of the second regularity section, they end the day on 4.8 seconds of penalties.

Regularity crews ran their own route through the hills of the Balagne: ZR1, Tesa - Muro (13.027 km), along the Codole reservoir, then ZR2, Cateri - Montemaggiore (11.238 km), which finishes beyond the famous Montemaggiore hairpins where last year's event concluded. The aim is to match a chosen average speed as precisely as possible, with every tenth of a second early or late at the timing points penalised. In the heat, one checkpoint on ZR2 caught out the entire field, with even the frontrunners dropping more than 2 seconds.

ZR1 produced a surprise winner: Christian and Romain Bos, just 0.8 seconds out in their Citroën CX (# 340). They now lie sixth. Second and third places are a family affair. Jean-François Nicoules and Jérôme Dupard (Ford Escort RS 2000 # 414) are 1.6 seconds off the lead, with his son François Nicoules and Antoine Grouillard (Renault Alpine A110 1600 S # 428) just a tenth further back and top of the Moderate average. Italians Giorgio Schon and Carlo Merenda (Lancia Delta # 335) are fourth, ahead of Danish pair Kenneth Simonsen and Otto Kristensen (Lancia Fulvia HF # 497), who lead the Low average. Defending champions Yves Deflandre and Jennifer Hugo (Porsche 911 # 330) are tenth, 4.3 seconds down.

Christophe Baillet (Porsche 911 # 332): "You're always a bit nervous. We've been killing time for 2 or 3 days waiting for the first stages, so it's a relief to finally get going. The run down through the Montemaggiore hairpins was very tricky, they're really tight. It's gone better than I expected and I'm very pleased with my day. I usually take a while to warm up, like a diesel! What we've gained, we keep. It's all coming down to tenths, and I know it will stay very close."

Jérôme Dupard (Ford Escort RS 2000 # 414): "We were expecting greasy or even wet roads, but it was bone dry. Corsicans love this kind of event and we love them for it. It's a real pleasure to drive in front of such passionate fans, on roads you'd never get access to on the mainland. The tarmac is badly broken up, but our car runs a gravel-spec chassis and it's very tough. It's like being in a washing machine in there, but what a joy to be here!"

François Nicoules (Renault Alpine A110 1600 S # 428): "We're all within a whisker of each other. These were 2 fairly short stages and there are 17 still to come, some of them very long, so we'll keep something in hand and not get carried away. It was very hot today; a bit of cooler weather from tomorrow won't hurt our old cars."

Regularity overall classification