Friday | 15 Aug 2014

Bouffier: ‘I know what to expect in Germany’

Bryan Bouffier says he is ready to make his long-awaited debut as a works driver at next week’s ADAC Rallye Deutschland (21-24 August), despite having never driven the event competitively.

The Frenchman’s second-place finish at January’s Rallye Monte-Carlo in a private Fiesta convinced Hyundai to hand the 35-year-old a testing contract for the rest of the season and his speed on asphalt has earned him the chance to test himself in works machinery on Germany’s notoriously tricky stages.

“I have never competed at Deutschland before but last year I was on gravel notes duty so I know what to expect from the stages,” Bouffier said. “You can’t learn these stages by heart so the recce will be crucial and it will be crucial to have good notes for this event.”

Bouffier gave the i20 WRC its first rally win at Rallye Antibes

Bouffier travels to Germany having already given Hyundai’s i20 WRC its first rally win at June’s Rallye Antibes – Côte d’Azur, an asphalt round of the French Rally Championship.

But having racked up lots more testing miles in the intervening months and undergone some recent homologation developments, the i20 WRC is now an even stronger package, according to Bouffier.

He said: “Since we won Rallye Antibes the Hyundai i20 WRC has improved a lot on Tarmac – we could feel it in the pre-event test.”

Bouffier will be joined by team-mates Thierry Neuville and Dani Sordo in the Hyundai line-up at Rallye Deutschland – the men that filled the top two places at the end of last year’s event.

Sordo says he can’t wait for the rally to start, having retired from all three of the events he’s contested so far this year. “I’ve been looking forward to driving the Hyundai on proper Tarmac since the beginning of the season,” he said. “It’s an event I feel very confident to drive.”

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