Pierre Campana aims to end the season in style on the Rallye du Var

Corsican rally driver Pierre Campana is aiming to repeat his category victory at the Sanremo Rally in September on the 55th Rallye du Var this weekend (27th to 29th November 2009): the eighth and final round of the French Rally Championship.

The 24-year-old will once again drive the latest-specification Renault Clio R3 on the event, which gets underway on Friday 27 November and finishes in the evening of Sunday 29 November. His car will be run by the experienced Italian Munaretto team, which took him to victory in Sanremo two months ago.

Even though Pierre will be competing in the series for only the second time, he still stands a chance of claiming a final podium place in the West European Clio Trophy. The all-asphalt Rallye du Var, based in the south of France, is one of the iconic events of the French Rally Championship, using similar stages to those of the legendary Monte Carlo Rally. The rally is based in the coastal resort of Sainte Maxime, close to Saint Tropez.

Pierre is competing on the fast and technical Var stages for the first time, co-driven as always by Sabrina de Castelli and backed by Yacco, with tyres from BFGoodrich. He will face an extremely strong Renault Clio R3 field on the event, including Renault's new Formula 1 signing Robert Kubica and former World Rally Championship star Freddy Loix: who finished third overall on the Intercontinental Rally Challenge this year. Leading away the field will be six-time World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb in a factory Citroen C4 WRC.

Pierre hopes to bring his season to an excellent conclusion on the Rallye du Var, having already won in Sanremo and claimed three victories on the French Suzuki Cup this year. The first 23-kilometre stage gets underway on Friday at 14:43. The crews then complete two more stages before returning to parc ferme at 1840. Saturday's action contains four further stages, while the rally concludes on Sunday at 11:35 after a total of 11 stages.

Two questions to Pierre Campana:

RB: What are you expecting from this Rallye du Var?

"Of course I would love to win, but like all the rallies I compete on, I am heading into the Rallye du Var with an open mind. I have to also bear in mind the fact that I have less experience of the car and the conditions than most other people. The Rallye du Var is a completely unknown quantity to me and it has a huge reputation. On the other hand, this certainly doesn't intimidate me and often we perform at our best under pressure. We will take each stage as it comes, see where we are compared to everyone else, and adjust our speed accordingly."

RB: What are your strongest attributes as a driver?

"That's a very tough question: when I drive a rally car it feels quite natural to me, so it's not something I think about so much. But I think that I am quite calm and determined: these two things are very important. I'm also lucky enough to benefit from a great team around me: I'd like to thank Yacco for sponsoring me and of course Sabrina for her skills in the co-driver's seat. Munaretto have also done an extremely good job in preparing our Clio. It's amazing to think that we have a chance of finishing on the final podium in the West European Clio Cup despite only having one previous outing in the series. I'm really looking forward to the weekend!"