Round 4 of the 1990 World Rally Championship proved to the fastest and closest ever!
The clear weather, all-tarmac event proved to be a very European affair - the Scandinavians had talked themselves out of entering it, and the challengers from the Orient prefer gravel events.
This left Toyota the only Japanese team to challenge Lancia.
With maestro Didier Auriol behind the wheel of the Italian flagship , the Lancia Martini Delta Integrale 16V, with custom-built Michelins specially designed for Corsica, what chance would the others have?
Would the wily Frenchman, with two previous consecutive Corsican Rally wins, pull off a hat trick? - or would arch rival Carlos Sainz in his Toyota Celica GT-4 lead the way to the rostrum?
It would be no pushover for either of them with other hopefuls such as Francois Chatriot piling his French Championship BMW, fitted with a special engined supplied by the factory - the first rally M3 with over 300bhp -, Armin Schwartz (Toyota Celica GT-4) and Bruno Saby (Delta Integrale 16V).
The action was frenetic to say the least, with, at one time, as many as five drivers locking horns for the lead in the hills south of Bastia.
Speedy Spaniard Sainz was left ashen-faced after a local farmer reversed his Renault van directly into his path - "It was the worst fright of my life" were the first clean words we were able to print!
Certainly one of the most exciting rally rounds in the 1990 series - and all perfectly captured for posterity, including awesome in-car shots.