Yoann Bonato was victorious on Rally Islas Canarias, the second round of the European Rally Championship season, defeating Mathieu Franceschi after a finely poised battle that lasted two days.
Five-time French Tarmac champion Bonato had retaken first place on Saturday afternoon after a puncture for erstwhile leader Alejandro Cachón – but spent the rest of the rally with Škoda driver Franceschi hot on his heels.
A late push from Franceschi on the rally’s final loop led to two stage wins but it wasn’t quite enough to catch the leader; he finished second by 2.8 seconds but took the ERC points lead in the process.
After clinching victory Bonato had words of encouragement for his compatriot: “The driver of the weekend is Mathieu Franceschi,” said Bonato. “He did a very good weekend and it’s good for his championship. I hope he wins the championship at the end of the season.”
It was a potentially unexpected second place for Franceschi, least of all for the man himself. While his track record on gravel is strong – he arrived in the ERC last year as the reigning French Gravel champion with a 100% win record – he’s less experienced on asphalt.
“We didn’t expect to be in this position in Canarias on Tarmac, as I need to learn everything on Tarmac,” admitted Franceschi afterwards.
Cachón lost 40.6s when he suffered a puncture on Friday but finished only 29.7s behind Bonato at the finish. He'd been rally leader before his tire trouble.
A sensational showdown for first place in the Spanish Superchampionship classification – and by extension, the battle for the final ERC podium place – was a three-way fight between Toyota Spain driver Cachón, Škoda runner José Suárez and Citroën Spain’s Diego Ruiloba.
Cachon had plummeted from the lead down to 18th place on Friday afternoon after a puncture had cost him nearly 40s. But rather than settle for scraps he pushed on, clocking the fastest time of the Spaniards on all but one Saturday stage.
The final moments at the powerstage finish featured plenty of refreshing stage times on the drivers’ phones – Ruiloba was checking split times as soon as he’d finished the stage to monitor Cachon and Suarez’s splits behind him.
Cachon was next through and finished the job he’d started a day earlier, recovering one last position to snatch S-CER victory on the final stage and with it third place in ERC.
The big loser on the powerstage was Suarez: he’d gone 5.8s slower than Cachon on the powerstage and lost places to both the Toytoa Spain driver and also Ruiloba, falling from third to fifth.
Battling for victory had spurred all three Spaniards beyond the reach of Hayden Paddon, who fell from the podium places on Saturday morning down to sixth place. He moves up to second place in the ERC standings, 21 points adrift of Franceschi.
“We haven’t had a bad weekend but when you look at the result, it makes it looks bad,” said Paddon at the finish.
Reigning champion Hayden Paddon couldn't quite match the pace of title rival Mathieu Franceschi throughout the rally
Rally Hungary winner Simone Tempestini remains third in the title race despite skipping Canarias, one point ahead of Bonato. Miklós Csomós falls to sixth in points after retiring on Friday, when he understeered off the road and crashed nose-first into a house. Both he and Attila Nagy suffered minor fractures but are already plotting a return at the next round of the season in Sweden.
Jon Armstrong was able to successfully off an out-of-sorts Mads Østberg, who had spent the weekend struggling to gel fully with his car. Østberg had already missed the season opener in Hungary due to illness.
Miko Marczyk should have been in the midst of that fight for seventh but was slapped with a two-minute penalty for a tire violation on Saturday morning. He’d run an unregistered tire from testing on his Škoda by mistake, rather than one from his registered allocation for the rally itself.
The fastest driver of the local contingent was Yeray Lemes’ Citroën C3 Rally2 in ninth, while Simon Wanger usurped 2022 ERC champion Efrén Llarena for 10th on the powerstage.
Mille Johansson clinched ERC Junior victory by over half a minute from Opel Junior driver Calle Carlberg, with the second works Corsa piloted by Timo Schulz completing the podium. Max McRae finished fourth and slipped to second in the championship fight, two points short of new leader Johansson.
