Ypres Rally : Shakedown & Driver Quotes

The Shakedown that took place yesterday was situated about 20 km drive from Ypres at the small town of Nieuwkerke. From 7pm till 11pm, over 80 cars ran the 4.88km stage. Thousands of spectators swamped the town and the surrounding countryside to catch a first glimpse of the cars in action.

My colleagues who are there at the rally tell me that there are many families with children amongst the group of spectators. That is so cool, reminds me of the amazing fans of Rally Hokkaido. Overall the spectator turnout at Ypres is great.

The team tested from 7pm till 11pm. It only began to get dark at 1030pm, and the team then fixed on the spotlights for a test before today’s rally that will run late into the night.

Will be back with more recaps.

In the meantime, we leave you with some quotes from our drivers:

Chris Atkinson:

“All’s going well and the car is working good.”

On his thoughts about today’s rally – “Realistically, it will definitely be a big challenge with extremely strong opposition, but we will go out and give our best”.

Alister McRae:

“This is one of the all time great rallies of Europe, and it’s really exciting for PROTON and myself to be here. It will be a tough rally with 24 other Super 2000 cars running on some very tricky stages. Looking forward to the weekend stages and we will see how it goes.”

Tom Cave:

“The car is good and I’m happy with how its running. We managed to try some changes to the setup on the car today which has helped me decide on the final setup I’ll be running for the rally.”

There are many more interesting pictures on our Official Facebook Page of the town, the service park, the drivers and the overall scene at Ypres Rally so be sure to check those out too. Goodnight for now!