The third round of the 2025 Rallycross France season saw Davy Jeanney conquer Châteauxroux against fierce opposition, as the Pailler and Meunier brothers, Julien Febreau and Yury Belevskiy compensated for the absence of second in points Jean-Baptiste Dubourg in offering a challenge that culminated in the second win for the No. 17 JMS Skoda Fabia RX.
For those unfamiliar with Rallycross France’s tracks, Châteauroux reminds of Lohéac in many ways, with a simple layout composed by medium speed corners and a thin layer of dirt in the unsealed portions at the ideal line, as most of the dirt was thrown to the outside over time. This favors aggressive driving at all times, because the right amount of bravery pays dividends in the first corner and at the Joker merge, points that had most of the argy bargy moments during the weekend.
Davy Jeanney topped the Qualifying with top times in heats 1 and 2, while Fabien Pailler dominated heats 3 and 4 to be the second, with RallyX North winner Julien Meunier making a surprise step up to supercars with the third place in the table, with Eddy Benezet in fourth using the Peugeot 208 WRX that was used as the reference car for the World RX Equalization of Technology by Andreas Bakkerud.
Semifinal 1 had Julien Febreau outpacing Fabien Pailler from the outside, with both Meunier brothers trailing them. Julien Meunier opted for an early Joker to avoid the queue ahead of him, but with Fabien Pailler and Damien Meunier going in the following lap and Febreau going on Lap 5, the order was unchanged until the Final Lap, as Pailler slipped down to fourth, but still held David Vincent to qualify for the Final.
The second Semifinal saw Davy Jeanney hold the inside line and the top spot from Eddy Benezet’s attack, while Yury Belevskiy was on a mission from the back of the grid to find a way past Jonathan Pailler or Stephane De Ganay. Eventually, De Ganay became Belevsiy’s prey as Pailler passed him, but the Swiss driver’s hunger was too big and he lost control trying to go sideways on De Ganay’s outside line, going down to the bottom of the order. Jeanney won easily while Pailler still had pace to pass Benezet, with De Ganay qualifying in the same fourth place he started.
With a strong grid in the Final and the first turn being a chaos magnet, anything could happen, and even though Febreau had a go at Jeanney, he couldn’t complete the move for the lead while Julien Meunier outsmarted Jonathan Pailler and became the third while Damien Meunier went undercover to the Joker on Lap 2. Jonathan went to the Joker on Lap 4, but Damien was already at the back of Fabien Pailler. Febreau went to the Joker on Lap 6, but neither he nor Julien Meunier were able to outpace Jeanney, who went straight to the win.
Rallycross France - Châteauroux event results
Jeanney is isolated in the lead of the points table with 113 points over the 87 of Jonathan Pailler, 78 of Damien Meunier and 76 of the absent Jean-Baptiste Dubourg. The championship returns to action on 6 July, when the competitors will be at Pont de Ruan for the fourth round of the 2025 season.
PHOTO: Rallycross France
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