The Monte was this past weekend, with a startlingly close finish and even more startlingly fast driving from the top crop of big horsepower WRC cars. But look below those entries and you will still find some seriously fantastic driving.
This is Thibaut Poizot and his codriver Grand Marion in their rather humbler Peugeot 208 R2, competing in the very bottom RC4B class. I’d say it’s a little front-wheel-drive hatchback with safety equipment, but these cars are reasonably trick for an economy car. Modifications include a five-speed sequential and race suspension, along with a 185-horsepower turbo four cylinder. Sporty!
Poizot ended up finishing fourth in class, but what I like to see, at about 3:40 in the video above, is the deft slide that he pulls off on this tight, loose, gravel-strewn downhill hairpin. A kick to the opposite direction, get the springs compressed, and then boink release the car to kick right around the corner. It’s a well-executed pendulum turn, or Scandinavian flick, or feint if you’ve watched too many Keiichi Tsuchiya videos.
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