Pauwels Motorsport... 25th May 2010: European championship rallycross
Pauwels and Duval are Lydden Hill Bound

Duval: "I like to be in the A final this time!"

Belgian rally hero François Duval says he will be in the A final in the British round of the European Rallycross Championship at Lydden Hill next weekend (May 30-31) when he makes his first appearance of the year in a Pauwels Motorsport Ford Focus Supercar. "I'm ready to race at Lydden and I'm going to Britain to be in the A final in this event!" said Duval, "The ERC is very competitive but I proved last year at Maasmechelen that I am fast and that the car and team is competitive."

Duval (29) has already enjoyed a successful career in the World Rally Championship – he won Rally Australia in 2005 – and made a sensational debut in Rallycross in his home round of the European championship at Maasmechelen in Belgium last August where he would have made it to the A final had his Focus not been slowed by a puncture while he led the B final. Duval had been linked to a full season in the 2010 championship after he tested a Pauwels Motorsport Focus at Valkenswaard in Holland early this year. That plan failed to develop but Duval now has a two event deal that will start at Lydden Hill.

Ford Focus Duval will use at this weekends ERC event

Duval and Pauwels Motorsport have worked hard to try and put together a programme in this year's European Rallycross Championship (ERC) and have now been given a two-event window of opportunity by Duval's long time backer Gordon Finest Beer and constrution CRC. Team boss Koen Pauwels hopes that this will lead to a longer term deal and a regular drive for Duval in the second half of the year. "I hoped that we would be able to get him [Duval] for a full season but it is not easy with sponsorship with anybody, anywhere at the moment and we could not get a budget sorted before the European championship started," said Pauwels, "I am still keen to work with François and he is interested to do more rallycross events, the deal we are working on now is the beginning of that. We have to prove that rallycross can give Gordon, CRC and the other partners the returns they want, if we do that then I think that we will be able do all the events in the second half of the championship."

The British event is the third round of the 2010 FIA European Rallycross Championship which has already completed events in Portugal and France. The championship is led by 2009 season runner up Michael Jernberg (Sweden) who has won both events in his Skoda Fabia II Supercar.

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