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JB Dubourg: When the light goes green, you just pray

24.05.2018

The Dubourg family has become a fixture in the ice racing category. And being great at driving fast sideways, they have also made a name for themselves in the world of rallycross. We caught up with Jean-Baptiste Dubourg in Mettet.

 

 

 

JB Dubourg: When the light goes green, you just pray

JB, for people who don’t know Rallycross, please explain what it’s all about.

 

It’s basically a form of motorsport. You have 5 or 6 cars with 600 horsepower battling it out on a short course with tarmac and gravel sections, for just a few laps. To qualify, you race both the clock as well as your competitors around the track. For these sessions, we start with 5 cars lined up next to each other, all wanting the be the first one out of the first corner. So that corner is usually pretty savage.

 

Five RX Supercars all lined up with the drivers roaring to go. Please describe the thoughts that go through your head?

 

There is a lot of pressure but you really have to keep your head cool and focus on the green light because your reaction needs to be lightning-fast. We also have to initiate our launch procedure. We put the car in first or second gear (depending on the grip), press the launch button, pull the handbrake, load up the revs and when the light goes green you let go of everything and just pray… (laughs)

 

 

 

JB Dubourg: When the light goes green, you just pray

So tell us about your car…

 

Well it’s a Renault Clio. (Laughs) Ok, not really. This car is a 4-wheel drive rallycross car that produces 600 horsepower and an immense torque of 850 Nm. With the drives, it weighs just 1.300 kg. And all that makes it go from nought to a hundred in less than two seconds, so it actually accelerates faster than a formula one car. 

 

The other cool thing about this car specifically that it is an all-French project. Work on developing of this car started only eight months ago by the French team G-Fors (a collaboration between fellow rallycross driver Guerlain Chicherit and Fors Performance) and it uses all French parts. The body shell is a French car, the gearbox is French and so is the engine (made by Oreca who also produce the Rebellion R13 LMP1 car).

 

 

 

JB Dubourg: When the light goes green, you just pray

Rallycross is known as a bit of a contact sport, it seems. How close can you go?

 

(Laughs) It’s very clear what we can and cannot do. We can touch and hit each other as much as we want. Actually, you don’t have much choice because it’s often impossible for five cars to go round one corner, they just don’t fit. But we aren’t allowed to do stupid things or push each other out of the way to make a pass. Then there will be a penalty.

 

How many bumpers do you destroy during one weekend?

 

It depends, but we always bring a lot of spares. Today it was not too bad as I only damaged one and not even by hitting another contender - I touched the ground with it during the landing from the jump.

 

 

 

JB Dubourg: When the light goes green, you just pray