Jos wins Rallye de Wallonie: 'We had to push!'

Published on 27 April 2025 by Stefan Meens

Jos Verstappen has won the Rallye de Wallonie, together with his navigator Renaud Jamoul. It is the duo’s third win of the season in the Belgian Rally Championship (BRC). At the end of the first day (Saturday) Jos and Renaud were in second place, behind Cédric Cherian in the Porsche 992 Rally GT. Although the latter looked set to take the overall victory, an electronics issue meant Verstappen clinched the win in his Skoda Fabia RS Rally 2.

“It was a great rally, we really had to push on every stage as on the straights we’d lose out to Cherain. It was a shame they ran into issues”, said Jos after the finish of the final stage. “Everything when perfect for us and we’re really happy with the progress we made in how made our pace notes and with our gravel crew. Everyone is really tuned in, so I’m really happy.”

The Rallye de Wallonie consist of 20 timed stages, of which eleven were completed on Saturday, with the remaining nine scheduled for the Sunday. The final day’s running is made up of three stages – Naninne (8.05km), Fernelmont-Eghezée (14.21km) and Vedrin (8.09km). On the first loop, Jos took the win on Naninne, with Cherian extending his overall lead by winning the other two.

On the second loop, the results are the same, but with Jos winning more time on Naninne and loosing less on Fernelmont-Eghezée and Vedrin. It meant that after seventeen stages, Cherain led Jos by 14.3 seconds as the pair lined up for the three final times stages.

Unfortunately for Cherain, his Porsche was plagued by electrical issues on stage eighteen, resulting in a lengthy delay, and crossing the finish line trailing Jos by two minutes. The battle for the win of the rally was effectively over with two stages to go, meaning Jos and Renaud went on to clinch the win of the Rallye de Wallonie, over a minute ahead of second placed Adrian Fernemont.