Bryan Bouffier says he expects to lose time running first on the road on the opening day of gravel-based Sata Rallye Açores.
The Peugeot France-backed driver will head his rivals over Thursday’s opening three stages as he bids for his second Intercontinental Rally Challenge victory of the season.
“I will do my best but for sure the two first stages are not the best,” said Bouffier. “They are very deep with a lot of loose. I will try to do my best to drive well. We will see what will be this evening but it won’t be possible to do a very good time.”
Bouffier has been run by the PH Sport operation from France so far this season but will switch to Ronald Leschhorn’s ROMO Motorsporttechnik operation for the Azores. He last drove for the German squad on the FxPro Cyprus Rally and Love Cyprus Golden Stage Rally in November 2010.
“I know this team because I have been driving with them in Poland,” said Bouffier. “There is no problem and the car is working very good. It is the same evolution. Peugeot Sport is a customer company so anyone can get the evolution in the Peugeot shop. We have a good evolution.”
Top 10 starting positions for day one
1 Bryan Bouffier/Xavier Panseri (Peugeot 207 S2000)
2 Juho Hänninen/Mikko Markkula (ŠKODA Fabia S2000)
3 Jan Kopecký/Petr Starý (ŠKODA Fabia S2000)
4 Guy Wilks/Phil Pugh (Peugeot 207 S2000)
5 Andreas Mikkelsen/Ola Fløene (ŠKODA Fabia S2000)
6 Patrik Sandell/Staffan Parmander (ŠKODA Fabia S2000)
7 Toshi Arai/Dale Moscatt (Subaru Impreza STI R4)
8 Bruno Magalhães/Paulo Grave (Peugeot 207 S2000)
9 Ricardo Moura/Sandro Eiró (Ralliart Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX)
10 Julien Maurin/Olivier Ural (M-Sport Ford Fiesta S2000)