Duval’s return

New 2011 Focus for Belgium’s first ever ERC event winner.

François Duval will race in the Belgian round of the European Rallycross Championship, returning to the scene of last year’s victory at Maasmechelen with a Pauwels Motorsport Ford Focus. News of Duval’s deal was allowed to slip out earlier than Pauwels had anticipated after the event organiser published a poster that included a banner saying ‘with François Duval’. “I did not expect that it would be announced yet,” said Pauwels, “We are building a new Ford Focus, the new 2011 model, so it will be the first one of those in Rallycross. It’s a little different from the last Focus, the weight balance is better and we have improved in several areas, suspension, etc.”

The shell for the car has been fabricated by Michael Jernberg and Pauwels Motorsport is now building up the car in readiness for Duval to have a test before racing at Maasmechelen at the start of next month. “At the moment the deal is only for this one race, but you never know, the car will be there and ready to go so if we can get enough money to do more I guess we can do more races,” said Pauwels who guided Duval to victory last August, the first ERC event ever won by a Belgian driver.

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