To round off this beautiful Italian morning in style, the third regularity section on the menu was much longer (28.925km), between Passo Ghimbegna and the small village of Pigna, further down in the valley, after a passage at an altitude of almost 1,600m at Monte Ceppo. It was an open road, as is always the case in the E-Rallye Monte-Carlo, with a little traffic, which caused a few problems for some of the competitors. The hourly average speed to respect on this RS13 had been lowered just before the start, to 31 km/h, by the race direction, but for some crews this was not low enough, resulting in heavy penalties at the end of the loop.

In this game of who loses wins, two Belgians once again emerged from the fray at the head of the pack, Jean-François Devillers and Eric Chapa, their ID4 GTX being entered by the Belgian VW Club. That makes four victories for Belgium since Wednesday, including three for this small but very successful club. Two Slovenians, Franko Spacapan and Sebastjan Kobal, took 2nd place in their Kia E-Niro, just ahead of Guido Guerrini, in another Kia E-Niro, who limited the damage well. The Italian, co-driven by Artur Prusak, took fewer penalty points than Didier Malga (Tesla) and Eneko Conde (Kia).

So he is now in the overall lead heading for the final evening and its last two regularity stages in the Nice hinterland. Guerrini therefore had good reason to enjoy his lunch break in Dolceacqua, to mark the twinning of Monaco and the Italian village which will become official on November 3. A welcome and well-deserved break, over a sumptuous snack offered by the village whose mayor is none other than Fulvio Gazzola. The same Gazzola who won the 6th E-Rallye Monte-Carlo last year, as co-driver to Jacques Pastor. It’s a small world…

Download the classification of the RS13