Veiby climbed to 2nd place in the JWRC

Norwegian youngster Ole Christian Veiby had one specific goal in mind ahead of Rally France: To advance to second place in the overall JWRC classifications. By finishing fourth he succeeded.

October 08, 2015

Norwegian youngster Ole Christian Veiby had one specific goal in mind ahead of Rally France: To advance to second place in the overall JWRC classifications. By finishing fourth he succeeded.

“This has been an incredibly demanding event. I have never seen anything even similar to it. The stages on Friday and Saturday exceeded the stages in Monte Carlo and that says a lot about how difficult it was. With that said, I’m very happy to take fourth place and also climb to second place overall in the JWRC” said the 19-year-old, who drives a Citröen DS3 R3T, run by the Finnish team Printsport. In the co-driver’s seat, he is accompanied by Anders Jæger.

Extreme weather in the form of a tropical storm, made the asphalt roads of Corsica even more challenging. Several stages had to be cancelled due to the bad weather and many of the stages that were run, had been affected by the enormous amounts of rain.

“Friday was basically about surviving every stage. One of the stages were the most difficult one of the rally to begin with and the water masses brought so much mud, stones and gravel onto the road, which made it very, very difficult. It was indescribably slippery” he explained.

But the youngster stuck to his plan and drove at a comfortable pace. When it dried up on Sunday, Ole showed what he is made of. Even though he was keen on finishing the rally, he still proved his capacity by winning the last special stage.

“It was really fun to finish with a stage win. I like it when there are good asphalt roads” said Ole, who describes this weekend’s JWRC round as very rich on experience.

“I have taken big steps forward this weekend and I’m very much looking forward to the two last JWRC rounds in Spain and Wales. I will fight all the way to stay in second in the standings” stated Ole, who has a five-point lead over his strongest competitor for the second place, Italian Simone Tempestini. Finnish Henri Haapamaki is in third, but will not be doing any more events this year. Jean-Rene Perry in fifth is as much as 30 points behind Ole.

Overall JWRC Classification after Rally Corsica.

  1. Quentin Gilbert, Frankrike, 106 points
  2. Ole Christian Veiby, Norway, 52
  3. Henri Haapamaki, Finland, 48
  4. Simone Tempestini, Italy, 47
  5. Jean-Rene Perry, France, 32