Slippery hairpin! Rally van Wervik 2022 - SS12: Kruiseke 4 - all cars (final stage near finish)

First competitor at 02:05 | First historic = second car | Close up of the corner at 34:42 | More info, timestamps... below ↓

The last stage from this 46th Rally van Wervik, a 4th run on SS Kruiseke. This time I went to a hairpin that was full of sand and dust, somewhere in the final kilometre.

The stage is 9.10 km long and was won of course by Davy Vanneste (1, Citroën C3 Rally2) (albeit, he did not win 8 out of 8 stages since Verstappen was out of the race, the scratch on SS7 was for Bjorn Syx!).

Paul Lietaer (4, Opel Ascona 400) was the fastest historic in 4:53.3, he was also P2 overall (+11.9), followed by Bjorn Syx (5, BMW E30 M3) on +1.9 (+13.8 o/a). (The E30 from Syx was sliding remarkably more than the Ascona from Lietaer in the hairpin in this video, that must be at least half of the time difference...?)

And on 4 and 5, we have the first FWD cars: Jonas Dewilde (20, Peugeot 208 Rally4) and Steven Dolfen (18, Opel Corsa Rally4) finished in resp. +15.1 and +15.5. Dewilde gave everything to stay in front of Dolfen who was very strong for a 1st rally with this car.

Rest of the overall results top 10:
6. Stefaan Prinzie (12, Alpine A110 Rally RGT) +16.9
7. Christophe Merlevede (16, BMW E30 M3) +20.3 (H +8.4)
8. Tom Ceuppens (36, BMW E87) +25.4
9. Kim Bauwens (44, Ford Fiesta R2T) +28.7
10. Niels Reynvoet (19, Renault Clio Rally5) +29.7

The historic top 5 is completed by
4. Cedriek Merlevede (17, Opel Ascona B) +31.7 (P12 o/a, H +19.8)
5. Paul McDevitt (25, Ford Escort RS 1800 MKII) +33.7 (P12 o/a, H +21.8)

After the retirement from Victorien Heuninck and the crash of Jos Verstappen, the rally was won convincingly by Davy Vanneste in 1:12:45.7 after 141.68 km (avg 116.8 km/h). He is on the podium with... 2 historics! Bjorn Syx managed to finish the rally as 2nd on +2:38.4 (avg 112.7 km/h), 28.6 seconds before Paul Lietaer (avg 112.0 km/h). On SS Wervik and SS Kruiseke Lietaer could compete with Syx, he lost the time on SS Geluwe.

But Lietaer (+3:07.0 o/a) was still remarkably faster than the first GT, Prinzie, who is 4th in +4:14.2, before the first FWD car: Jonas Dewilde finished in +4:41.6 and won the battle with Dolfen who barely misses the top 5 with 10.6 seconds but has done a super job.

Off to Ypres where all of them will compete again!!

65 cars got to the finish of the rally, from the 115 that started.

When more or less half of the cars had driven the stage, the stage was interrupted because someone had rolled, although he was not blocking the road. Looking at the stage results this must have been Thijs Meirlevede (130, BMW M3 E36 Compact) (the start number does not correspond with start position). They probably were going fast trying to go up one place in the classification, from P11 to P10, which was absolutely possible. Hopefully the car is not too bad!

Some more timestamps:
09:10 Koenraad De Waele (37) stalls
12:08 Mathieu Vandoolaeghe (55, Mercedes-Benz 190E) almost spins out, but doesn't stop
12:58 Brecht Lavaert (88, BMW 323i E21) has brought a ribbon
13:25 Jan Lavaert (57, BMW 318) spins out
17:09 Jensy Leys (75, BMW E30) also slides wide
23:12 Stijn Blanchard (82, Citroën Saxo VTS) spins
25:13 Luc Diet (85, Peugeot 106) takes the corner very short
25:41 Johan Vandenbroele (89, Subaru Impreza GT Turbo) steps out wide too
27:00 THUMBNAIL Mike Callens (102, Opel Manta i240) doing a donut (was it a mistake or intended? :-) )
28:14 Ferre Demyttenaere (112, Peugeot 205 Rallye) whole car is sliding wide (apparently they were driving without intercom)

Enjoy! That's it for the 12 Hours of Wervik, there will be a small pause now but the next event in Belgium will be the Ypres Rally WRC!

Chapters
00:00 Course cars
02:05 Rally
18:56 Pause
20:21 Rally resumed
33:54 Finished
34:42 The hairpin