In an epic battle that only decided victory or defeat on the very last day, Charles Colton and Ryan Pickering won the 2016 Winter Challenge to Monte-Carlo in a Porsche 911. The five-day event from February 21-25, 2016 once again required not only speed but also a great deal of endurance and precise navigation.
The challenging route took the teams over many mountain passes and through the most winding roads in the north of France. Traditionally, the route ran through a snow-covered landscape in the last few days, but the last remaining snow hardly caused any difficulties for the participants this year.
Bumpy start
Team John Abel and Leigh Powley from Great Britain were considered the favorites for the challenge, but a last-minute switch from their registered Sunbeam Tiger to an Alfa Romeo Giulia due to technical problems foretold that this would not be an easy competition for the duo. In fact, Leigh himself confirmed one of his weakest performances in the first few days. In the last few days, however, they stepped on the gas and impressed with their usual performance, and the Brits even achieved the best performance of the day on Wednesday.
Annoying mistake
From the second day onwards, 2014 winner Jan Ebus took control of the competition together with the extremely experienced navigator Bart den Hartog. The Dutch pairing in a Porsche 356C was able to hold the lead of the Winter Challenge until the very last day. However, a mistake on the time card meant a two-and-a-half-minute penalty for them and threw them back to second place, where they finished the rally.
Another team that followed Ebus den Hartog all the way was the English team of Dermot Carnegie and Paul Bosdet in the Volvo PV544. However, they also had a few problems at the time control section and received a 1 minute and 45 second penalty. They also received a second penalty for arriving 17 minutes late at the start of the time control section. These mistakes ultimately earned the team third place overall.
Convincing performance
The team of Paul Crosby and Andy Pullen in the Porsche 911 also put in an impressive performance, receiving the fewest penalties in the entire event! If their car had been just one year older, they would have taken the overall victory.
In the end, victory went to the team of Charles Colton and Ryan Pickinger from Cheshire. After putting in a solid performance all day and being close on the heels of the leaders, they were able to capitalize on Hartog's mistake and emerged as the beaming winners.
