Maxim Decock makes successful debut in European Championship
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Maxim Decock and Tom Buyse have had an educational adventure in Spain. In their EC debut in the challenging Rally Sierra Morena they reached the finish line without any faults in a high-level field of participants.
The team started the intense week in Spain with a test session on Wednesday. "That test session was certainly welcome as a first introduction to the typical mountain course", Maxim Decock opens. "It also gave us the chance to get used to the new Hankook tyres for us. It was a good test base, but the course was quickly exhausted due to the many passages. In the end, it turned out not to be so representative for the rest of the rally."
During the first real competition day on Saturday, it quickly became apparent that the setup was not ideal. “We noticed that the car was still too soft. We were still too close to a Belgian setup, so we made some adjustments during the day. For the rest, we remained without any problems and also without mistakes. We mainly had trouble with the course and the notes. In Belgium, we have much more time to get everything explained, while in Spain everything follows much faster. Moreover, I put a lot of details in the notes and that was not ideal. This is certainly something we will work on in the future.”
The EC also comes with specific regulations that were an extra challenge. “In Belgium, we are allowed to do three passages per test during the reconnaissance, while in the EC there are only two. In addition, the speed is limited to 80 km/h, which makes it difficult to estimate certain passages. There are also a lot of extra rules in the EC that you have to take into account all the time, so that always causes some extra stress.”
Ultimately, Decock and co-driver Tom Buyse finished 14th in the Rally4 category out of 28 starters. In the Junior ERC, they achieved a 12th place. “Of course, we are not really used to being so far down in the standings, but purely in terms of difference in seconds per kilometre, the result is not too bad. We were not with the leading group, but we did not make fools of ourselves either. We now know what level we reach in Belgium, but in the Junior ERC the level is so much higher. We, as the smallest team of the entire service park, drive with limited resources and still a bit with our heads, while the top drivers do not really have any margin. In the end, we are satisfied with our result. We reached the finish and that without a scratch on the car, which also turned out not to be so easy.”
The rest of the calendar is not yet entirely clear. “Of course we would love to go to the next ERC round in Hungary. It is very busy at the moment and we would also have to convert the car for unpaved roads. We will soon put everything in order and then decide what the rest of our programme will look like”, concludes Maxim Decock.
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