“I was the first one to put the Rally3 Clio off the road…”
Falling flat on sheet ice as your feet scrabble for grip is never the most flattering of looks at the best of times. But it’s particularly unflattering when you’ve just shoved a brand-new rally car into a snowbank. Allow me to explain. As part of the trip to Andorra, Renault wanted to give each of the attending journalists a shot at driving its brand-new machine. Why? “Because it’s a customer car, so we need to present a car and we need to have good media for sure, so it’s always a good day!,” Paranthoen said. To his credit, after I’d sheepishly returned to the pits after going off, he was still smiling and asking for my feedback on the car. The Pas de la Casa circuit isn’t what you’d call a warm or sunny place. And just to be unkind, the weather gods had decided to be extra unkind by delivering a fresh haze of snow for my run. They were conditions best described by my rallycross ace tutor Guillaume de Ridder as “s**t”. This was a big moment for me. Before parking my backside into the Clio, I’d only ever sat inside four rally cars before – and one of them wasn’t even moving! This would be my first taste of driving a rally car, and I was doing it in the worst of conditions. I’m reaching for the excuses already, can you tell? Things started encouragingly. As I’ve explained I have no frame of reference, but immediately I found some confidence. On the first, long hairpin of the short 700m circuit, I had no trouble pitching it in and holding a slide as I balanced my foot on the throttle. Feels mega to say, even better to do. But the back end of the track was not my friend. I kept misjudging my braking point after the back straight, and that’s what would ultimately do me in. Carved into the snow was a quick left-right sequence of turns before another swooping hairpin that more or less completed the tour. But on my third and final lap, I found myself off-line and into the thick snow. Not to worry, de Ridder patiently walked me through how to reverse a Clio Rally3, and I was soon on my way. But not for long. After spending some time stalling the car in the previous bank, I was disorientated and couldn’t really see where I was going. By the time I figured out I was meant to go right, I’d gone too far straight and nursed the car into a snowbank again. Only this time, it wasn’t coming free. “I think we’re stuck now,” de Ridder commented. We were. The absolute shame of it. If I’d been a hero and gone off trying too hard, Renault wouldn’t have been happy but I could’ve at least felt triumphant. This was just an utterly pathetic off-road excursion, and a rather embarrassing way for my first time driving a rally car to end. At least de Ridder was on my side, adamant that the lack of visibility had stitched me up. Renault PR guru Guillaume Renard? He was less sympathetic, applauding me as I walked back into the truck. What do you think my odds are of being invited back? I did come home with two unique distinctions though. I am the first-ever British national to drive a Renault Clio Rally3, but also (to my knowledge) the first person ever to put one off the road. One of them I’m proud of. The other? No comment.