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Pierre Campana has ended the opening day of action at this year’s Tour de Corse in a strong seventh place, just 25 seconds from the overall lead after the first two stages of this year’s event, which is the third rally of the 2011 Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC).

Pierre’s first attempt at the abrasive 27.53km Le Fangu-Notre Dame de la Serra stage was generally trouble-free apart from a slight problem with the tyre pressures which unbalanced the S2000 Peugeot-207, resulting in some unwanted oversteer.

With the second stage of the legendary Tour de Corse being a repeat run of the first, Pierre was able to demonstrate an impressive rate of improvement, knocking a full 15 seconds from his stage 1 time. In one of the biggest stage-on-stage improvements seen today, Pierre cemented an encouraging seventh best cumulative time of the day, in spite of his self-acknowledged objectives to take things steadily.

Pierre and the Munaretto team went a bit soft on the rear of the Peugeut 207 for the second stage, which lost rear performance in the second half of the stage, but Pierre was able to compensate with some deft driving, knowing where he could safely find a time gain. In such a tightly squeezed field with just 16 seconds separating Pierre from second place, it is this sort of intelligent driving that will make all the difference.

It has been a positive start to this important event for Corsican Campana, who made a high profile appearance in the pre-event press conference this morning. Together with the Munaretto team, Pierre will be hoping to take this momentum into day two, which sees a total of six stages with two runs of a three stage loop.

Pierre said: “I’ve been quite satisfied with how this first day has been. From the press conference this morning through to this afternoon’s stages, it has been a good day. These two stages have been important because they are so long and I deliberately wanted to take things steadily. I had some oversteer in the first stage because the tyre pressures weren’t quite right but we set a solid time. Then, in the repeat stage, we went a bit too soft on the rear which meant I had to dig a bit deeper, but I was confident to make up the time deficit safely, and we ended the first day in 7th which is very pleasing, especially with how close the times are. We haven’t quite found the car as we had it in the shakedown but the guys in Munaretto have done a great job. This event is a big deal for me, both as a Corsican driving on home soil and knowing what it means for my career, so I am happy with how things have gone today. We’ll be taking each of tomorrow’s six stages one by one to continue in this positive direction.”

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