Albatec Racing steers Maloigne to race victory in Mayenne

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Mayenne, Pays de la Loire (France) â€” Tuesday 27 September 2016; Philippe Maloigne powered his SamShield-backed Albatec Peugeot 208 RX Supercar to his second French RX victory amid a quality entry in Mayenne on Sunday. The result moves Philippe and the Dumfries team closer to the top of the French Rallycross Championship with two rounds remaining.

Following a successful test at Mayenne in August, Philippe headed into the event confident of delivering a strong result aboard the two-litre, 16v motor. The weekend proved the reliability of the car once more, and cemented Philippe's mounting reputation as a serious title contender following a string of consistent results across qualifying, semi-final and Final.

After open practice on Saturday morning, round seven of French RX kicked off with the first of four qualifying races where a strong performance allowed him to take his first race win of the weekend and set the fourth fastest overall time. Another consistent show by the former motocross racer in Q2 saw him third fastest, to lay fourth in the overnight intermediate standings.

Sunday got underway with warm-up, where Philippe made the best of the Peugeot 208's powerhouse to take the top spot before heading into the first of the final two qualifying races. Q3 proved a close-fought race, and saw Philippe fifth overall with the third fastest race lap. However, he was later adjudged to have touched another car and had his time disallowed. Undeterred the Frenchman bounced back in the final qualifier, with a strong run into fourth to keep him comfortably in the top six ahead of the semi-finals.

Taking the start for the first of the two races Philippe produced another solid run to take a clear-cut victory. At the conclusion of the two races, he topped the times with the fastest overall race time and fastest race lap, to guarantee a front row start for the seven lap Final.

The eight car race provided the opportunity to demonstrate once again the capability and reliability of the Albatec 208 and the emergence of the Supercar rookie as a future champion. Starting from second, Philippe took the lead at turn two and after a perfectly judged joker lap drove a controlled and spirited race to take victory.

With two rounds remaining in French RX, Albatec Racing and Philippe are now placed fifth in the title standings and return to race action in the penultimate round at Dreux over the weekend of 8&9 October.

Andy Scott, Team Principal and driver Albatec Racing #26 :

"It's been a great weekend for Albatec Racing and a fantastic result for Philippe; just reward for all his hard work during the season so far. His results this weekend underline his potential going forward and I think he's proved himself as a real contender for future French RX championship titles.

"Across the weekend, we proved once again the reliability of the Albatec Peugeot 208 and against a 21 car field were consistently among the fastest on track. We now into the final two rounds confident and more determined than ever."

Philippe Maloigne, driver Albatec Racing #21 :

"It was a real pleasure to win this race. To have won in Chateauroux in the wet and now to win in the dry is a good confident boost as I know I can be fast regardless of the conditions. We had no problems all weekend. Mayenne is a tricky circuit, very unforgiving in places where the barriers are close to the track so there's no room for error, but we came away with the car intact.

"Car reliability was fantastic all weekend and we were consistently fast across both days. It's helped working with the team and JÃ©rÃ´me [Grosset-Janin], together we have worked to improve the set-up and each time we get into the car we can both feel the improvements each other has made, so that makes me proud to be contributing to the cars' development."

-Ends-

Albatec Racing Press Office:

Cathy Metcalfe: +44 (0)7802 332398 | [cathy@albatecracing.com]

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