Jos fourth after first day in Ypres: 'Second run went much better'

Published on 27 June 2025 by Misha van der Kroon

Jos Verstappen finished the first day of the Ypres Rally in fourth place. Together with his co-driver Renaud Jamoul, he started the Belgian Rally Championship (BRC) event in Ypres behind the wheel of his Skoda Fabia RS Rally 2. The competition will continue on Saturday.

“The second run went much better than the first. We’ll see what adjustments we can make to the car for Saturday,” Jos said on Friday evening.

The day started with eight special stages across four different stages, each run twice: Westouter (7.32km), Wijtschate (12.92km), Reninge (13.08km), and Langemark (8.61km). Jos faced strong competition, including from the international field.

The first run was tight, with Jos finishing in P6 (+2.0s), P7 (+5.9s), P6 (+4.4s), and P7 (+3.0s) respectively. This placed him seventh overall at that point, 11.0 seconds behind the Hyundai I20 of Hayden Paddon and Jared Hudson from New Zealand.

Jos reflected: “It’s not quite how I want it yet, it’s been tough. The braking doesn’t give me confidence, so we need to make some changes to the car to fix that. That’s what we’re going to work on.”

The second run over the same four stages went better, although the competition was still just a bit faster. Jos finished in P3 (0.5s), P5 (+3.7s), P4 (+1.9s), and P3 (+0.9s), which made the 53-year-old driver climb to fourth overall, 14.3 seconds behind Paddon.

“It went better,” Jos said. “The car felt much better, and I had a lot more confidence braking. There’s not much more to gain, maybe just a little here and there. I think it’s good.”

On Saturday, ten more stages await in the Ypres Rally.