FIA World Rally Championship

2023 Clio Trophy France Terre top juniors Matteo Chatillon and Maxence Cornuau contested the fourth round of their WRC3 programme on Rally Poland. The ARL Sport crew set the fastest time on the extremely fast SS10 of the Mazurian Lakes region, finishing just short of the podium. Thanks to this performance, the French crew are now second in the championship at mid-season. Hubert Kowalczyk and Jarosław Hryniuk were also in action. Making his world championship debut on home soil, the 20-year-old Polish driver made a solid and serious effort to finish in the top five in the RC3 category.

Matteo Chatillon : "It was a difficult rally, but we learned much from it. The pace was crazy, but we had great fun in our Clio Rally3. Thanks to this result, we’ve moved up to second place in the general classification, so a big thank you to the ARL Sport team for all their hard work this weekend and to all our supporters. Our goal now is to be on the start line in Finland !"

German Rally Championship

Clio Rally3 continued its fine form on the national scene in Germany with another RC3 victory on the ADAC Saarland-Pfalz Rally. Co-driven by Clara Bettge, Carsten Mohe took his fourth RC3 win in five starts this season, with a more than 14-minute margin of victory and finished ninth overall. Clio Rally5 also won in RC5 with Marco Thomas and Lisa Winter.

Greek Tarmac Rally Championship

Clio Rally3 excelled again in Greece. On the Rally Fthiotidos, Nikos Komnos and Nikos Kontos finished fourth on the tarmac roads of Lamia, both in Rally3 and in the C2 category, 18.9s ahead of their rivals. In his first start with the model, the 30-year-old Greek driver also finished third on the national scene and second on the Tour European Rally.

Italian Rally Championship

Eight Clio Rally5s contested Rally Due Valli, round four of the Italian Tarmac Rally Championship. Near Verona, Cristian Mantoet and Jenny Maddalozzo led a Renault lockout of the top-six in Rally5, 9.8s ahead of Matteo Scalet and Melania D’Agostino. Gianluca Micheloni and Roberta Antonelli completed the class podium.

French Rally Cup

In France, Clio Rally4 struck hard with an overall podium third-place finish for Thierry Landais and Morgan Lefebvre on the Rallye du Clain. The model claimed the top four places in its class and two in the top ten overall on an event where Sébastien Princet and Thomas Baudin led a sweep of the podium for Clio Rally5. It was the same story on the Rallye du Vallespir, led by Benjamin Herail and Quentin Monteillet.

Ans elsewhere…

Clio Rally3 won its class in Italy with Alberto Sassi and Stefano Costi on the Rally Internazionale Golfo dell’Asinara, where Giovanni Solinas and Michela Virdis also won with Clio Rally5. The other variants were not to be outdone, with a one-two finish for Clio Rally4 and Clio Rally5 on Rally Valdinievole e Montalbano, with the crews of Paolo Moricci - Paolo Garavaldi and Fabio Spinelli - Simone Gabbricci. The two models also won in their respective categories on Rallycrono Comarca Níjar (Spain) with Francisco Pérez - Marcos Rumi and Francisco Puertas - Osel Román.

Meanwhile, Kim Daldini and Pietro D’Agostino emerged victorious from the sixteen Clio Rally5 crews at the start of Rally di Castiglione Torinese (Italy). Clio Rally5 also set the pace with Jesús Pérez and Alexander Melián on Rally Villa de Adeje (Spain), Martin and František Končal on Rally Plzeň (Czech Republic), Stanislav Zeman and Ján Konfal on Rally Prešov RRP (Slovakia) and Jure Jereb and Matej Praček on Rally Železniki (Slovenia). Outside Europe, Javier Arce and Mario Acosta scored another success with Clio Rally5 on the Rally de Lima in Peru.

Coming up

This weekend, the Clio Trophy France Asphalte reaches the season’s halfway stage at the Rallye Aveyron Rouergue Occitanie (4-6 July), with 34 crews on the starting line. Title holder Benjamin Stirling will contest the third event on his official programme with Clio Rally3. Another Clio Rally3 will be in action with Jean-Baptiste Daune, as will three Clio Rally4s driven by Quentin Ribaud, Florian Picchioni and Julien Bregeon.

Meanwhile, Clio Rally3 will contest Rally Estonia as part of the FIA European Rally Championship (FIA ERC) with Estonians Joosep Ralf Nõgene and Aleks Lesk. Thirteen Clio Rally5s will also be on the Rallye Rias Baixas for round three of the Clio Trophy Spain Asfalto. At the same time, the Clio RXs in the French Junior Rallycross Championship will head to Pont-de-Ruan for the fourth event on their calendar.