Hi, friends!

I always liked tarmac rallies. That's probably because my experience of rally driving is very connected with that surface. In my country there's a culture of tarmac rallies and only once per year we have gravel rally show. And that's it. 15 years ago there was a rally with mixed surfaces which I drove and the experience was great. But if you want a practice on gravel roads you can count that you will destroy some of the parts from your suspension. That's why we all practice on tarmac roads and after all, our rallies are driven on tarmac surface.

Back to the past. Rally Corsica has a history in the World Rally Championship and it's called a rally with 10 000 corners. It's not that fast as Rally Catalunya or Rally Germany but it's thrilling to watch drivers how they handle very technical roads such that one on Corsica. Corsica has lots of victims from the drivers because it's extremely dangerous with big drops beside a road that leads directly to the sea. So it's dangerous too.

Drivers must be very precise and the concentration must super high. Because of all that corners you must listen to your co-driver super carefully. There's no room for mistake.

Back to 1997 edition of the rally. F2 class was on it's peak and drivers started to match the times of WRC cars. That was because F2 cars were 280kg lighter and had maybe 40bhp less then WRC cars. For example, Citroen Xsara F2 had 320bhp and it was 280kg lighter then WRC cars. That was the reason why they won twice in 1999 against WRC machinery. But their engines revved up to 10000rpm and that was a pleasure to listen. I heard that Peugeot 306 Maxi engine revved up until 11000rpm. That was the noise!

In this edition you can see the battle of Subaru and Ford WRC cars against two Peugeots of Delacour and Panizzi. Colin McRae finally won with Subaru Impreza WRC because there was a heavy rain on the last special stage and wet surface suits better to four wheel drive machinery from WRC cars. Just to remind you that F2 cars were front wheel drive machines.

Enjoy...

Thanks for photo and videos to WRC.com and private Youtube channel.

Cheers!