the essential
The Millavois, crowned world rally champion in 1994, was the second Aveyronnais to win the Rouergue, in 1986, six years after his first participation in the event. And he was even the first to string together three overall victories.
EIn 1986, Didier Auriol was already a legend”sums up Jean-Claude Bessaou. The current boss of the Rouergue rally knows what he is talking about because that year, when the Millau driver won his very first victory in the event, he was also in the race. “It was my very first Rouergue. We weren’t playing in the same league! Auriol was THE young driver in the making. For all the Aveyronnais, he was a star. And that was just the beginning.” In mid-May 1986, Didier Auriol triumphed on the 13th Rouergue, at the time called the Rouergue criterium, with his co-driver Bernard Occelli on an Austin Metro 6R4. The Millavois started the event for the first time in 1979, when he was about to celebrate his 21st birthday. “I had done a few hill climbs before but this was my very first rally”recalls the man who remembers having run the Rouergue six times, including “one in the early 1980s, with an Opel GTE”. In 1979, “It was mainly about discovering the world of rallying and working with a co-driver”, underlines Oriol. And thanks to his victory in 1986, he was the second Aveyron resident to win the race, ten years after Jean-Jacques Enjalbert. But above all he was the first to string together three victories. Only Philippe Bugalski, record-breaking driver from Rouergue, managed to do the same in 1998, 1999 and 2000.
The superstition of 13
But before entering the legend of Aveyron rallying and climbing to the highest step of the podium, Auriol had to deal with mechanical problems. In 1985, when his Renault 5 Turbo Maxi had already suffered an impact with a guardrail during the prologue, the Millavois was forced to retire when the head gasket ruptured on the road to the Villecomtal special. Mouret Bridge. It was at this moment, on departmental road 13, that the pilot’s superstition around this number was born, which only left him at the end of his career. Thirteenth page of notes, route number 13… “And I often had problems in the thirteenth special stages, like in this Villecomtal SSspecifies the South-Aveyronnais. In 1987, while we were battling for the lead, we did a 360°C on the descent to Villecomtal. After that, I told myself that nothing more could happen to us and that we could win. (laughs).”
And even the following year, Didier Auriol experienced some mechanical setbacks. “Bad luck! Yesterday afternoon, as he was about to drive his Metro into the parc ferme, Didier discovered a leak under his car: the oil pump had just failed. He had time to turn around to have a new pump fitted by his assistance With an equally new engine (changed the day before), Didier was confident: “I have a car guaranteed for 20,000 km”.we could read in the columns of Centre Presse on May 17, 1986, which presented the 13th edition of Rouergue. “I had done two rallies before, that season, and I really didn’t like the car, it wasn’t competitive. And for Rouergue, I finally had a new car!”
At the end of the weekend, Auriol and Occelli clearly won, ahead of the duo Bernard Darniche-Alain Mahé by 8’15”. The driver from South Aveyron did it again in 1987 and 1988 with a Ford Sierra RS Cosworth, while he won two new French championship titles in the same years, in addition to that of 1986. Enriching his record with 21 victories in the French championship between 1986 to 1995, and 20 in the WRC (World rally championship) between 1988 to 2001, the culmination of which was the world champion title that he won with Occelli in 1994.
And if Didier Auriol hung up his phone at the end of the 2000s, he will be there to blow out the 50 candles of Rouergue next week. The rally legend will not be behind the wheel but will launch the start ceremony on Thursday at 6 p.m.
