French Rally Driver Stranded in Morocco After Event Cancellation and Border Closure

For his seventh participation in the Maroc Historic Rally, the 69-year-old pilot from Batz-sur-Mer, Michel Crespel, almost got stuck in the kingdom with his wife and two mechanics, reports Actu.fr. After a Marseille-Tangier crossing, he reaches Essaouira around noon on Thursday, November 25 to prepare for this international competition. But things do not go as planned. The pilot learns that the rally has been canceled after settling into a rented villa for about ten days.

Michel immediately heads back in the other direction with his crew. He reaches Tangier after more than 12 hours of travel. He faces the difficulty of finding a ferry for himself, his wife, his two mechanics, his two 6-meter trucks and the trailer that carries his legendary 300-horsepower R5 turbo, a 20-meter combination. Thanks to the intervention of the consul, he finally boards on Sunday, "probably also thanks to the support of the rally people," his son Cédric supposes.

It is "an incredible stroke of luck" for the champion. "On Monday, everything was blocked. At the port, there was a long queue and the people who could not board were distraught," he says. He returned home on Friday, December 3 and hopes to be reimbursed for the expenses incurred for the race he had been preparing for three years, on the one hand, and intends to quickly return to competition, on the other.