Project Rally One has completed its initial shakedown running and started its first full day of testing in France on Tuesday.
Former Citroën factory driver Stéphane Lefebvre has taken the wheel of chassis number one on the first of three days of testing in the Alsace region.
Project Rally One’s Alain Penasse told DirtFish: “We are happy with the way the roll-out, the shakedown test went. We completed 350 kilometers last week. We drove at one circuit in France and then another one in Germany. We had no problems at all with the car – to use the words of Lionel [Hansen Project Rally One leader]: ‘The car has been well born.’
“When we have no issues at all in shakedown, then we move to the first proper test, which is today (Tuesday). Everything is on time with the car, we had the dates set from before and those are the dates we are running to.”
Talking about Lefebvre’s presence in the car, Penasse added: “We have made no decisions on the driver line-up for the future, but Stéphane is in the car for the test – he has a lot of experience of the Toyota, the Citroën and Hyundai Rally2 cars. He knows them all pretty well and he understands where the performance and the behavior of the car is and where the level is for today.
Project Rally One completed 350 kilometers of running at two different circuits last week
“This is a very early test, this is not about going deep into the level of the performance of the car.”
Penasse said the team still plans to take a decision next month regarding its potential Monte Carlo Rally entry.
“Nothing has changed for that,” he said, “but we do have the intention to show the car to the media in the near future.”
Penasse confirmed the first Project Rally One chassis was powered by the engine from a Śkoda Fabia RS Rally2, but added that didn’t mean it would be the long-term choice.
“As we talked about before, we have the opportunity to develop and homologate our own engine,” he said.
