The Tour de Corse was a rally first held in 1956 on the island of Corsica. It was included as the French round in the inaugural 1973 round of the World Rally Champinonship. In 2009 it was dropped from the WRC Calendar and was part of the Intercontinental Rally Championship and the ]Europen Rally Championship, from 2011 to 2014. It was, again, included in the WRC calendar from 2015 to 2019.
These days the rally his held predominanlty on the mountain roads around Ajacio.
Several drivers have been killed during the event, including fatalities at 3 consecutive events. Attilio Bettega, driving a Lancia 037 Rally, died during the fourth special stage of the 1985 rally, Zérubia-Santa Giulia. On May 2 1986, exactly a year later, Henri Toivonen and his co-driver Sergio Cresto died in their Lancia Delta S4 during the 18th stage of the event, Corte-Taverna. Almost a year later in 1987, co-driver French Corsican Jean-Michel Argenti and driver Jean Marchini fatally crashed similarly to those before them.
Toivonen’s and Crestos deaths were particularly high profile and contreversial. They were rising stars of the WRC and the favourites to win the 1985 championship. They went off the road while leading by over a minute. It is largely held that their deaths spelled the end of the Group B cars. Their car had plunged down a ravine and the petrol tank which sat beneath them ruptured and burst into flames. The cars were ultimately deemed too fast and hard to control with safety features being sidelined in favour of outright speed.
The Belgian female driver Gilberte Thirion won the rally’s first running in a Renault Dauphine. Two drivers have won the event a record six times; Bernard Darniche (1970, 1975, 1977, 1978, 1979 and 1981) and Didier Auriol (1988, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1995). The only non-French drivers to win the event more than once are Sandro Munari, Markku Alén, Colin McRae and Thierry Neuville.