François Duval and co-driver Denis Giraudet will not be participating in Saturday's final day of action at the Ypres Rally, the damage to their Skoda Fabia S2000 having been assessed as too important to adequately repair in time.

Without the possibility of trying out the car before Saturday's start, and with the Skoda Gordon Rally Team unable to guarantee that the Fabia will perform as it should during the second part of the event, it was decided to forego any SupeRally considerations and to simply retire.

Duval had an off less than a kilometre into Friday's opening stage, bringing any victory ambitions to an end for one of the event's star drivers.

The Belgian was participating in his first IRC event in over a year, and unfortunately it was a very short experience in front of his home crowd.