Ypres Westhoek Rally 2008 Final Results, Loix cruises to a dominant victory

Freddy Loix took a convincing win on the Ypres Rally 2008 and was never headed throughout the event. He started Day 2 with a 1m 13s lead to Vouilloz and then increased this when Vouilloz spun off the road on SS10 and dropped to 4th. Bernd Casier in the Polo S2000 took up the challenge as he climbed to second (one of the drives of the rally) but Vouilloz and Basso (Punto) went back ahead of him on SS11. Basso then lost time and slipped to 4th. Vouilloz was able to fend off Casier (who was involved in a big battle with the next three places behind him) to maintain second place for a Peugeot 1-2-3 at the finish as Casier dropped to 4th on the final stage. Loix had enough of a cushion to consolidate his lead on day two and was never threatened by the chasing pack to win by 58s. This was Loix's fifth Ypres victory which is a record on the event and the rally also marked a 1-2 finish for the Kronos BF Goodrich team.

The battle for third, fourth, fifth and sixth would be the highlight of the second day. With two stages left only 8s separated Casier, Snijers, Basso and Rossetti who had been on a charge all day (taking 4 stage wins) after his problems yesterday. With the 42km stage left, Basso passed Snijers, Rossetti still 6th, all were within a second of each other and all three just 5sec down on Casier.

On the final stage the unfortunate Basso spun and also picked up a 1m penalty for booking in early at a TC and would finish 6th. Casier would be fourth with Snijers fifth but it was Rossetti (he was storming all day) who would come through to grab third at the death and keep his lead in the IRC series with a 4 point margin to Vouilloz, though Rossetti will miss the next round Rally Russia.

There were a few casualties behind the top six though. Janos Toth (207) went out on SS9 with suspension troubles, Tirabassi (207) too went out on SS9 with suspension woes when a shock absorber came up through the bonnet. Travaglia's Punto had been off on SS10 and Bettega rolled his Honda Civic out on SS10 as well. Kris Princen had a slow puncture on SS8 and retired on the final test with an overheating engine. Betti (207) had gearbox trouble throughout day 2 and eventually finished 13th. Travaglia eventually retired as went off on SS14 while Alen had a disasterous rally, culminating in losing 4m on SS13 with a puncture to end up 12th and compound Fiat's misery. Only 9 S2000 cars would finish out of a total of 18 at the start of the rally.

A rather bizarre incident occurred at the start of SS11 when Dani Sola crashed his Punto into Jasper van den Heuval's Evo at the start control. Sola was running late due to gearbox trouble and didn't see the Evo before it was too late. Sola ripped his wheel off and was forced to retire, while van de Heurval's car sustained damage but he was able to continue and finished an excellent 7th.

It appears that Jan Kopecky's huge crash in which he rolled the car heavily is under police investigation as a concrete post was on the road at the time.

Mark Higgins had an eventful time in the MG having to fight back after road penalties from yesterday. He was equal 5th fastest on SS9 and was up to 16th O/A but had overheating problems on SS11. Then had power steering failure on the 42km SS12 and had to drive for 38kms without it. Higgins was forced to retire shortly after.

Videos

Last day action featuring stills of Bettaga's roll in the first clip

International and historics day two

Top Twenty Results

1	9	LOIX Freddy	N	4	02:44:40.3	00:00.0	00:00.0
2	2	VOUILLOZ Nicolas	N	4	02:45:39.0	00:58.7	00:58.7
3	14	ROSSETTI Luca	N	4	02:46:08.9	01:28.6	00:29.9
4	19	CASIER Bernd	N	4	02:46:14.8	01:34.5	00:05.9
5	17	SNIJERS Patrick	N	4	02:46:24.3	01:44.0	00:09.5
6	6	BASSO Giandomenico	N	4	02:48:03.2	03:22.9	01:38.9
7	12	VAN DEN HEUVEL Jaspe	N	4	02:49:24.0	04:43.7	01:20.8
8	24	BRUYNEEL Dominique	N	4	02:50:59.8	06:19.5	01:35.8
9	20	LIETAER Paul	N	4	02:51:00.9	06:20.6	00:01.1
10	21	AUQUIER Raphaël	N	4	02:52:22.4	07:42.1	01:21.5
11	31	DEBACKERE Melissa	N	4	02:52:34.2	07:53.9	00:11.8
12	16	ALEN Anton	N	4	02:52:39.2	07:58.9	00:05.0
13	7	BETTI Luca	N	4	02:53:11.8	08:31.5	00:32.6
14	33	BURKART Aaron	A	6	02:54:15.5	09:35.2	01:03.7
15	36	SCHAMMEL Gilles	A	7	02:54:31.3	09:51.0	00:15.8
16	23	LHONNAY Stéphane	N	4	02:56:35.8	11:55.5	02:04.5
17	30	VAN PARIJS Timothy	N	4	02:56:55.7	12:15.4	00:19.9
18	52	DE KEYSER Frederik	N	4	02:58:57.7	14:17.4	02:02.0
19	50	BURTON Caren	A	6	02:59:35.5	14:55.2	00:37.8
20	44	SNAET Eddy	N	4	02:59:41.6	15:01.3	00:06.1

Jan Kopecky onboard in-car crash from day 1

No concrete block for Vouilloz who was the previous car?

Statement by the Kopecký team re: yesterday's accident:

They hit an iron-concrete pilar almost in the middle of the road behind the corner. The pillar catapulted the car in the air breaking oil sump guard and damaging engine. The crew were unhurt and the medical service with hellicopter was on the scene before the crew left the car. The pillar was broken into smaller pieces by the impact.

IRC officials gave onboard video of Nicolas Vouilloz to team Kopecký to show that there was nothing like that on the road before. Team Kronos after seeing onboards and talking to Nicolas Voilloz also gave a statement stating that when he was driving there wasn't such a big concrete pillar on the road.

Team Kopecký doesn't want to make an early judgement about the incident as the whole thing is under investigation.