Latest news 2011

While crews are competing in Cyprus for the closing event of the 2011 IRC championship, preparations for the 2012 Geko Ypres Rally have already started. The rally keeps its traditional spot on the calendar and will take place the last weekend of June. The Eurosport Group, which promotes the IRC through Eurosport Events, will once again be a privileged partner of the Geko Ypres Rally, and provide large-scale TV-coverage of the event taking place 21-23 June 2012.

Although taking place in the familiar landmarks of the Ypres region, the special stages of the 2012 edition of the Geko Ypres Rally will not be business as usual. Some of the legendary special stages will undergo in-depth changes and modifications to make this demanding rally even more challenging for pilots and more attractive for spectators. Both the special stages of "Kemmel" and "Heuvelland" will be completely revamped, resulting in two new extremely technical and thrilling special stages. Moreover, on Friday an all-new special stage in the Heuvelland-region will be introduced: unchartered territory but the narrow, bumpy roads perfectly match the unique character of the Geko Ypres Rally

The Geko Ypres rally 2012 will traditionally be organized during the last weekend of June, more specifically on 21-23th of June 2012.

Following the meeting held on 21 July by the FIA stewards concerned, it was decided to exclude car number 2 ? the Peugeot 207 S2000 of Bryan Bouffier and Xavier Panseri ? from the final results of the 2011 Geko Ypres Rally. The reason for this decision is an item of non-conformity in the steering system.

The entrant does not wish to appeal against the decision. With Bouffier and Panseri having originally been classified second on the event, all the competitors who were third or below now move up a place in the final results.

It was 22h30 when the first cars of this fascinating 47th Geko Ypres Rally came over the podium on the Marketplace of Ypres for one last time. En for the seventh time in de history of the race, the first car coming through was that of Freddy Loix.

Last year Freddy fought a serious battle with Kris Meeke until the latter made a mistake on the Saturday afternoon. From then on, he only had to fend off Jan Kopecky of Czech Republic who kept the pressure on Freddy until the end. The Belgian won his sixth crown in the City of Cats after an exhausting weekend.

This year, things were easier and then again, they were not. Easier as Jan Kopecký (Škoda Fabia S2000) forfeited and from the early beginnings, we lost the Peugeot 207 S2000 of Thierry Neuville (SS1) while the other "lion", Brian Bouffier, made few mistakes in SS2 and SS3. Freddy hence could open up a gap with his competitors. Guy Wilks (Peugeot 207 S2000) tried to still hang on but the Loix train was just going too fast. On Saturday afternoon, two punctures sealed his fate. But this victory was also a difficult one as the Škoda BFO-driver now had to focus on his own race and on not making mistakes. This is often very tricky, but Freddy is an experienced professional and he finished in style taking his 7th win hereby reinforcing his record.