25 Jan 12

Campana
impresses on
MINI debut

MINI World Rally Team principal Dave Wilcock has admitted he was impressed with Pierre Campana’s performance on Rallye Monte-Carlo last week.

Driving for the MINI factory team for the first time, Campana finished a trouble-free seventh on the 2012 World Rally Championship powered by Nokia opener.

The highlight of the Corsican’s showing was his third quickest time on the particularly icy stage 12, Cimetiere de Vassieux-Col de Gaudissart, where he was 17.4 seconds slower than fastest man Mikko Hirvonen and 21.6 seconds ahead of his MINI team-mate Dani Sordo.

Campana’s time was helped by the decision to run him on studded tyres, but Wilcock was still very pleased with the pace.

“Pierre came in and did a very good job with the team,” said Wilcock. “He was very level-headed and sensible in his approach to what has to be one of the most difficult events to make a debut with a team. Even when things were getting difficult with the weather he was very relaxed and able to show good speed.”

Campana said: “The car was great to drive for the whole event and it was a great experience to work directly with the MINI WRC team for this event. I was definitely happy to get the positive feedback from the team and from David Richards at the end of the rally.”