18 replies to this topic

[V8 Fireworks]

Leg 1

1 Loeb 1 hr 9 min 35 seconds
2 Sordo +0:44
3 Hirvonen +1:04
4 H. Solberg + 3:09
5 Rautenbach + 4:18
6 Ogier +4:23
7 Atkinson + 4:51
8 Wilson +4:56

Notes:

- Rally is very wet, with final two stages cancelled for standing water.

- Aava took advantage of switch from C4 to what he calls the more drivable, if more understeery Focus to lead the rally early before getting stuck in a ditch.

- Loeb went to the lead after cautious times on early stages.

- Latvala had a 1 minute lead on first stage then lost 2 minutes with a crash on second stage.

- A Proton S2000 was incredibly running in the top 5 early in the rally ahead of 10+ WRCars, before the Renault engine exploded.

- Aktinson in his private C4 chose wrong tyres, then didn't close the bonnet properly to break his windscreen and then crashed (claiming aqua-planning)... observers suggest perhaps the Subaru was a quick championship capable car after all? Co-driver Prevot was injuried in the crash into a pole on his side of the car, but wrc.com suggests he will continue.

- Obversers suggest Henning Solberg is lost on tarmac. He suggest he has adopted a cautious approach and hopes all the others fall off the road, and hopes no other driver takes the same approach and beats him, so that he can get a good result.

- Monte Carlo winner Ogier in the IRC, has not mounted an attack on the top of the leaderboard with his private C41 on the first leg of the rally.

- Limited turnout of Irish WRCars from national competition, but there are a few Imprezasa and Focuses (including the older model 03/04 Focus) amongst other cars.

- In other news, Solberg's Xsara purchased from Citroen is thought to be a 2001 built car driven by Puras to the first Xsara victory. With such an old car, that was displayed in Citroen museum from 2002-2004, Solberg has stated he will upgrade to another car later in the season. However Loeb drove the car for five rallies in 04, and the car was used by Kronos for Stohl and others in 2005 and 07. It was repurchased for Citroen for use by Rautenbach in two rallies.. one each over two seasons, including preparation for Ireland in a national rally. It is thought the car is upgraded to 2006 specification. His Petter Solberg World Rally Team has 10 crew including ex Citroen works engineer and many mechanics from Norwegian border.

Why not S2000, IMO:

- Cars should not be in 5th place if they are 4 minutes behind on leg one. The formula should not be an expensive S2000+ but instead Standard S2000. All the privateers and works teams should be in the same class, in this way there would be 30-50 entrants if entry fees were low and promotional package was clearly superior to IRC and also sufficiently well promoted and cheap to enter/run so national entrants to put an entry in for their WRC round. In this way if a driver in the outright class loses a minute... instead of dropping 2 positions, they should drop 10-15 positions that would be PROPER rallying with a proper field with lots of quick entrants... not so easy for outright class pilots to fall off the road and remain in the points as they do running WRCars.

Also IF Citroen or Ford do overhaul Fiat, Peugout or Skoda by bigger spending despite being behind in their S2000 development, then they will be required to build 20 cars and sell some for the fixed FIA price so privateers will be able to purchase these car (IF they are quicker than the exisiting S2000s) cheaply.

[pingu666]

any idea where the tv coverage is for the uk?

[V8 Fireworks]

Eurosport presumably. Perhaps there will be a one-hour or 30-min highlights package the following week on a more readily available station. And MSport and Citroen want hi-tech S2000+ cars to maintain their expensive prices, exclusively selling the equipment capable of competitive WRC racing

[Chicken McNuggets]

Aren't Dave still broadcasting WRC coverage? I think they were certainly mentioned in the listings of this week's Autosport.

[Phucaigh]

I see nothing on Dave for today unless I missed it.

Max Mosley says the internet is the future for WRC coverage, it would be possible to have full live coverage that way, its not possible for TV coverage as the schedule would not suit full live coverage.

Mosley got something right...

[alfista]

Originally posted by Phucaigh
I see nothing on Dave for today unless I missed it.

Max Mosley says the internet is the future for WRC coverage, it would be possible to have full live coverage that way, its not possible for TV coverage as the schedule would not suit full live coverage.

Mosley got something right...

Max can say what he wants about the net but the fact is that wrc.com freezes or goes down regularly this weekend. Brave new world?

[alfista]

I fully appreciate that every individual has a right to spend his/her money in the way he/she wants. But looking to WRC results and seeing name of Matt Wilson raises my blood pressure every time. I have read zillion hyper-optimistic stories about how he is learning and has reached all his targets and blah-blah-blah. IMHO it's a purest kind of BS. OK, he is young but he has best equipment available and is doing already his third WRC season. What has he learned? He's not even crashing! It can be a good sign but results rather show he's not pushing at all. And nobody is ready to admit that the only reason he is present are his daddy's unfulfilled ambitions.
IMHO WRC can't survive in long-term with clowns like Wilson or Al-Quassimi or even Rautenbach. No-one can stop them participating but with drivers like them scoring points makes WRC ridiculous. That's why we need cheaper cars, be it S2000+ or even S2000.

[Chicken McNuggets]

Originally posted by Phucaigh
I see nothing on Dave for today unless I missed it.

Rally Ireland coverage is at 6pm on Sunday. It sounds to me like the same one hour for the full three legs which they devoted to each round last year. I just thought I'd mention Dave, BTW, as weren't there off-season rumours that their committment was wavering? Although I may have only dreamt it...

http://dave.uktv.co....ng/world-rally/

[Chicken McNuggets]

Originally posted by alfista
I fully appreciate that every individual has a right to spend his/her money in the way he/she wants. But looking to WRC results and seeing name of Matt Wilson raises my blood pressure every time. I have read zillion hyper-optimistic stories about how he is learning and has reached all his targets and blah-blah-blah. IMHO it's a purest kind of BS. OK, he is young but he has best equipment available and is doing already his third WRC season. What has he learned? He's not even crashing! It can be a good sign but results rather show he's not pushing at all. And nobody is ready to admit that the only reason he is present are his daddy's unfulfilled ambitions.
IMHO WRC can't survive in long-term with clowns like Wilson or Al-Quassimi or even Rautenbach. No-one can stop them participating but with drivers like them scoring points makes WRC ridiculous. That's why we need cheaper cars, be it S2000+ or even S2000.

Well, I have also made the remark a zillion times on internet message boards that, for his age (21), Wilson is doing fine, and that he has no need to look like the next McRae, Burns or rallying Lewis Hamilton in order to have a perfectly worthwhile WRC (or general rallying) career, which is what so many fans, incredibly bizarrely, constantly seem to expect from him. Duval was being hailed as a great upcoming talent at his age for simply finishing near the top ten on events, for example.

As far as I'm concerned, any anger should be directed to a much greater extent to the problems with cheap machinery etc. which you actually, rather paradoxically, highlight, than towards him personally ("Clown", "Slowson" etc. as others have put it). With a stronger field, you wouldn't see Wilson anywhere near the points, which is precisely the point. He'd be in the ranks of privateers and 'gentleman racers', ostensibly just there for the love of the competition, doing what they can. Just because he happens to rather incidentally be competing in this particular WRC era, and thus be more prominent, is utterly incidental. The WRC and rallying in general will always be all the stronger for its strength in depth and the variety of its characters, including talent levels, whether they be a Loeb or a Gronholm, or a Wilson or an Armin Kremer or a Stohl, so I can never understand why such a direct anti-Wilson sentiment keeps surfacing all of the time.

[alfista]

Originally posted by Chicken McNuggets
The WRC and rallying in general will always be all the stronger for its strength in depth and the variety of its characters, including talent levels, whether they be a Loeb or a Gronholm, or a Wilson or an Armin Kremer or a Stohl, so I can never understand why such a direct anti-Wilson sentiment keeps surfacing all of the time.

That's right, rallying is much more democratic than F1 - basically you only need to have money to buy or rent a car to take part in World Championship. What Matt is doing in WRC is the same you can see in every amateur series - driving fast car slowly makes you ridiculous (while nobody notices you if you're driving slow car slowly and make no noise about it). If you are doing it for your leisure then it's OK but WRC is supposed to be the pinnacle of world rallying. Maybe Matt is talented enough but went from kindergarten directly to the university and is struggling now? Maybe it would be wiser to drive slower and not so powerful cars for starting? Maybe he will be a real star with S2000?
I have nothing against Matt as a person but he and Al-Quassimi are the most noticeable signs of how tearful is the state of WRC. Can you imagine Jean Todt fielding another Ferrari in F1 for his son Nicolas and seeing him losing 10 seconds per lap?

[krapmeister]

Originally posted by V8 Fireworks
...observers suggest perhaps the Subaru was a quick championship capable car after all?

So said observers are suggesting that Petter Solberg isn't a very good rally driver then?

[V8 Fireworks]

Well Atko has picked up the pace to be near top 3 times, comparable to Latvala and Sordo, and sometimes similar to Loeb. So maybe Petter Solberg is okay ;)

[wewantourdarbyback]

Originally posted by Phucaigh
I see nothing on Dave for today unless I missed it.

Max Mosley says the internet is the future for WRC coverage, it would be possible to have full live coverage that way, its not possible for TV coverage as the schedule would not suit full live coverage.

Mosley got something right...

Dave have never shown anything other than a highlights package Sunday nights, why would they start showing more now without making a big thing of it?

Today they re showed the 'World Rally: Access All Areas' Ireland preview.

[SpamJet]

Has Loeb put on weight?

http://news.bbc.co.u...lly/7863959.stm

They might the post the right picture soon.

[GerardF1]

With less teams - not that Suzuki was challenging for wins - it looks to be as close to a spec series as you can get. Either a Ford or a Citroen.

Loeb is still amazing at the second runs through a stage.

Ford has got to get on top now or forget it.

[V8 Fireworks]

It's not really Ford is it, it's MSport backed by Abu Dhabi with some BP/Castrol money and token Ford support against a genuinely works-baced Citroen equipe with extra unneeded Red Bull backin to make them even better funded...

[alfista]

Originally posted by V8 Fireworks
It's not really Ford is it, it's MSport backed by Abu Dhabi with some BP/Castrol money and token Ford support against a genuinely works-baced Citroen equipe with extra unneeded Red Bull backin to make them even better funded...

BTW, The Team Formerly Known As Subaru was also nothing else than Prodrive.

[GerardF1]

Originally posted by V8 Fireworks
It's not really Ford is it, it's MSport backed by Abu Dhabi with some BP/Castrol money and token Ford support against a genuinely works-baced Citroen equipe with extra unneeded Red Bull backin to make them even better funded...

I agree but they bill themselves as "Ford". Subaru wasn't a factory team - it was a team hired by Subaru to run the Impreza.

[BerndRos]

I live in plymouth and went over for the weekend with my son , great time with a very laid back attitude by the marshalls , bloody tiring though as drove 550 miles over 3 days and saw 6 complete stages . flew Exeter - Dublin .