Organised, focused and motivated – three character traits which best describe our co-drivers and which will be put to the ultimate test at next week’s Tour de Corse.
We caught up with all three of our top-flight co-drivers to discover just what it is that makes the Corsican fixture so challenging.
Julien Ingrassia said:
“I write one corner per page in Corsica… only joking! Okay, we might not have to write that much, but it is a lot. The number of pages is influenced by the size of each co-driver’s writing and the amount of detail each crew includes in their pacenotes but, as an example, I use 94 pages for stage nine alone!
“The most important thing when delivering so much information is to keep the rhythm. The easiest way to explain it is to think of it like a piece of music. All the notes have to be there, and the tune has to be there, but we have to play it faster.”
Martin Järveoja said:
“This will be my first time in Corsica so I’ll need to get up to speed fairly quickly. With so many corners and so much information to relay to the driver, it’s a lot of work and we need to be extremely focused and calm under pressure.
“For me however, the biggest challenge will be the recce. I suffer from travel sickness and, although you don’t notice it so much in the rally car, you can feel it on the recce… and the roads in Corsica aren’t exactly straight!”
Dan Barritt said:
“The Tour de Corse is pretty different to most other rallies. It’s all about endurance and that means a lot of work for us as co-drivers.
“To put it into perspective, I would generally use about one page per kilometre if not a bit more for the more traditional rallies, but in Corsica I’m down to 0.75 kilometres per page!”
