JWRC: Burkart starts to put Spain tragedy in past.

OMV's Aaron Burkart put in an excellent performance on the Rallye de France-Tour de Corse at the weekend, to score his first points in the Junior World Rally Championship category.

It was a remarkable result for the young German coming just two weeks after the tragic death of his co-driver, Jorg Bastuck on the Rally Catalunya.

Partnered by Tanja Geilhausen he had a solid event in the Citroen C2 S1600 and eventually brought the car home seventh to open his 2006 points account. His times were consistent throughout and he speed gradually increased, culminating with two seventh quickest stage times out of the 12 runners still going in the JWRC in the final two tests.

"I'm very pleased to be at the finish, after the tragedy that we suffered in Spain," he reflected.

"All in all everything went perfectly today. In the beginning I underestimated the oncoming issues. But it just takes time. Currently I'm already quite well acquainted with the car and the stages in Corsica were real fun."

His biggest problem came on Saturday, in the second loop, when he damaged his front left tyre and part of the fender on his C2 while at racing speed. Despite that though he coped with it with no problems...

"We changed the tyre [after Vico-Plage du Liamone] and provisionally reattached the fender which obviously cost us time on SS7. Just after the start of SS8 the fender got loose and hit my side of the windshield. We had no choice but to go on like that for the remaining 26 kilometres - another repair would have cost us even more time," he explained.

Burkart's JWRC campaign will now resume in May, when he takes in the WRC event in Sardinia.