Without turning a wheel in competition, Project Rally One has already left a strong impression.
The Belgian outfit only has 21 full-time staff members, yet it has created a World Rally Championship car that test driver Stéphane Lefebvre believes is “like a factory car”.
The real test will be against the stopwatch, but former Citroën works driver Lefebvre has been impressed by what he’s seen.
“When I saw the philosophy and how Lionel [Hansen] wants to build the project it’s quite crazy and unbelievable. And to be honest, he doesn’t need to be shy with what he’s done. The car is really strong. It looks like a factory car,” Lefebvre told DirtFish.
“When I jumped in the car for the first time, when I did the first rollout, I said, ‘OK, it’s not a joke’. It’s a real car and he wants to do the best with what he can do.
“And to be honest, comparing it to what I’ve done with Citroën in the Rally2 program in the past, it’s really similar.”
Ultimately Project Rally One will battle Toyota’s new creation, but it could also face competition from all the Rally2 cars on the market.
Lefebvre has been positively surprised by the Project Rally One project
Lefebvre has driven the Toyota, Škoda, Hyundai, Citroën and Ford Rally2 machines over the years, so he is well qualified to assess how Project Rally One currently stacks up.
“For the moment, it’s quite similar, to be honest,” he revealed. “But I think we have a lot of things to try and develop more for the future. But in terms of pace, for the moment, it’s really, really close.
“The first step was to have a car easy to drive for the customer, for everybody,” Lefebvre added. “To build a proper WRC car, it’s not so easy to drive and the window is very close.
“The first idea is to have one easy car and after we try to find some performance for the future.”
WRC Promoter COO Julien Vial is confident Project Rally One can be competitive, considering the personnel involved, but suggested drivers could be a decisive factor.
“It’s always difficult because you have the fundamentals of the cars and the conception, but you have also the exploitation,” Vial told DirtFish.
“So it’s mainly linked with the drivers and how you manage your race, so it’s so difficult [to say] and I don’t want to give any answer to that because if Project Rally One has maybe a very famous driver in Monte, for sure it can be happen because the conditions are very different so… but it’s depending on many, many elements.
“What we have seen is this project is well-organized. We have some guys like Jean-Claude Vaucard that developed in the past the Peugeot 205, the [Citroën] Xsara WRC, so the skills are here. So I think they will be competitive.”
Vial believes Project Rally One’s performances on the stages will help encourage other constructors to join the WRC.
“We are in the transition and it’s normal that some people like Lionel truly, truly trust on it since the beginning,” he explained.
“But for some others, they need to have some time to be sure it’s something interesting and also to have the long-term perspective for the championship.
“But now we have more and more interest, and I think after Monte it will start again and it will continue to grow up.
“It’s a new era and we just need to wait.”
