ERC Preview: Stars touch down on the Canary Islands, not just for sunlight

ERC Preview: Stars touch down on the Canary Islands, not just for sunlight
by Martijn Kösters
As star studded the European Rally Championship opener was in Austria, as bleak its field was in the following Ventspils Rally in Latvia. Given, Jari Ketomaa, Craig Breen and Francois Delecour were interesting headliners in the Baltic but it did not match the likes of Kopecký, Hänninen and even Blomqvist in Austria.

Back to current times, and we have Kopecký, Breen and Oliviera on our entry list. Add to this Robert Kubica in a brand-new Citroën DS3, János Puskadi driving a Fabia S2000, Jean Leandri driving for the returning Sainteloc team, Luis Monzon in a MINI, Jeremi Ancian with backing from the Peugeot Rally Academy and we get a quite interesting fight for the points.

The rally in total encompasses a hefty 246km of timed stages packed into less than 30 hours, which means any mistake will have very costly repercussions and consistency is absolutely vital. Action starts early on the Friday with eight stages spread around the clock from before eight in the morning to half past six in the early evening with stages reaching from between 13 to 26 kilometres. Note the one hour time difference with Central Europe. Two runs of the Moya, Artenara and Tejeda stages in the morning and early afternoon with Aguimes (26km) and Ingenio completing day one in the late afternoon. After both three-stage loops there is a service of 30 minutes. Day two consists of two runs on the trio of Maspalomas, San Bartolome and Vallesco stages. As stages are equal last-minute attacks are to be expected when differences stay close at the front.

Now who to tip for the win? Kopecký has won twice in three attempts at the Canarias so far, but only just held off Bouffier in Austria in his ageing Peugeot 207. The Canary Islands being far from wintery Austria and conditions likely to be more equal this weekend, it is time for the Czech to show he's up for the job.

Yet that is exactly what Craig Breen will be thinking too. With less experience he may be, but he has certainly got the pace. Outscoring Francois Delecour in similar Peugeot material must have given him a boost, but missing out the win also would have made him more eager to go for glory. Will he keep it together?

Then there are the outsiders, Robert Kubica, Daniel Oliviera, Local Luis Monzon, Janos Puskadi, Jeremi Ancian. They all make their debut in the new-style European Rally Championship, and some of them showed great things before. Who knows what happens if either Breen or Kopecký get into trouble?

Rally Islas Canarias starts Friday morning, coverage on twitter.com/RallyandCross

Rally Review: WRC Rally Spain

Rally Review: WRC Rally Spain

by Martijn Kösters

The 2012 WRC Season rapped up in Spain. It will be the final rally for the Ford Factory team and the Mini WRT run by Prodrive, as well as the final rally for the Production WRC (PWRC), WRC Academy and SWRC in their current form. Moreover the Rally of Spain was the last rally for Sebastien Loeb's full campaign, as from next year on he will be driving only his favourite events and no longer challenge for the title. Jari-Matti Latvala drove his last stages for Ford, as he joins VW next year.

The fact that many drivers/manufacturers were going to leave or move somewhere else provided an excellent recipe for a thrilling rally. Helped by changing conditions their was no dominating team throughout the weekend, and the win wasn't decided until the final stage.


Stage two put the field upside down when a downpour during the stage meant that the drivers who ran first found themselves in the best road conditions. These were not the Citroëns, nor the Fords or even the Minis. Both Tanak and Ostberg topped the table after the second stage, setting an equal pace of 15.54.5. Mikko Hirvonen followed 17.5s down, Loeb lost 25s, Latvala 33. More drama on the stage included Solberg and Neuville, who slid off the road and retired. Ostberg and Tanak proved not to be a one-hit wonder after matching the Citroëns pace on stage 3, where Latvala was over-cautious and lost more time even when weather improved.

Stages were still slippery on Friday afternoon, something which caught Tanak and Hirvonen who did not dare to take as much risk as Loeb did, who was fastest by 5 seconds. Where Hirvonen and Tanak dropped to 4^th and 5^th, Loeb closed the gap to leader Ostberg to 27.2 seconds at the end of day 1. Latvala was third on 47s.


Saturday started with Loeb and Latvala hunting on Ostberg, who dropped back after a wrong tyre choice on SS8. “We had some information that the stage was 50 per cent dry, we put some hard tyres on, but for sure it was not. We went off quite early and lost 40s or something.” Ostberg dropped to third, a couple of seconds ahead of Hirvonen. Further down Novikov nursed braking problems, but still made it up to 9^th, allbeit 12 minutes down on the leader.

The afternoon saw a great comeback by Dani Sordo who set two fastest stage times after a great repair by his team. Ostberg had setup problems as his soft setup was less and less suitable for the drying stages, he would find himself in fifth by the end of the day. Latvala couldn't quite match Loeb's up front, for similar reasons as Ostberg, increasing the gap to 27s by the end of day two. Only happy Ford driver was Ott Tanak, who might be in for a podium as he happily kept up with Hirvonen.

A small mistake cost Ott Tanak dearly as he slipped down to 5^th after a spin on Stage 14, but was lucky to still be in the rally: “We went off, it was quite a big crash and I’m surprised the car is still running. We lost at least 10 seconds, it was quite a big accident.” Sordo must have been content with the morning pace of his Mini, setting three fastest times in three stages. Further down WRC Debutee Hans Weijs couldn't complete his debut with a points finish. He ran in sixth but retired with suspension damage.

Latvala started one final charge on sunday's second loop. Taking 4.9 seconds out of Loeb on SS16 he closed the gap to 19.8 with two stages to go. Tanak crashed, granting fifth place to Jarkko Nikara who experienced an excellent WRC debut with Mini. Dani Sordo could not save his weekend by winning the Power Stage, as a fully committed Latvala took another 10.7 seconds out of Loeb's lead and gained three extra points. Yet with only 4 competitive kilometers left it was unlikely any major position changes would take place. Loeb would eventually win the rally by 7 seconds over Latvala, as Hirvonen kept Ostberg at bay for 3^rd. Nikara and Atkinson ended another solid weekend for Mini in 5^th and 7^th, while Craig Breen took the SWRC title by finishing 6^th overall.

Final World Rally Championship Standings:

1 Sebastien Loeb 270pts

2 Mikko Hirvonen 213pts

3 Jari-Matti Latvala 154pts

4 Mads Ostberg 149pts

5 Petter Solberg 124pts

6 Evgeni Novikov 88pts

7 Thierry Neuville 53pts

8 Ott Tanak 52pts

9 Martin Prokop 46pts

10 Sebastien Ogier 41pts


The World Rally Championship starts its 2013 season in the second weekend of January with the Rally Monte Carlo WITH Sebastien Loeb competing.

Ford pulls out, now what about the WRC's future?

Ford pulls out, now what about the WRC's future?

by Martijn Kösters

It must have come as a shock to many rally fans yesterday afternoon, when Ford announced it would not be competing as a works team in the WRC after this year. Ford is the brand with the biggest rallying legacy, being a competitor in rallying since the 1970s. With MINI issuing a similar announcement and Citroën focussing on Touringcars in the future, will there be a WRC to look at in a few year's time?

Reigning constructor's champion Citroën has recently announced it will be competing next year (2013) with a couple of DS3s, yet so far hasn't made any statements on 2014 and beyond. However the brand has hinted at competing the WRC. Given Citroëns poor sales figures in Europe, I can't see them run a WRC program alongside a WTCC program. For 2013 the Citroën team expands to three works cars, driven by Hirvonen, Al-Qassimi and another driver. The Citroën junior team competing as well, probably with Thierry Neuville.

In all grief about Ford leaving, we must not forget that Volkswagen are coming into the WRC next year, fully committed. VW have tested throughout the season, all be it with a Skoda badge on the front, but Ogier and possible colleague drivers Andreas Mikkelsen and Kevin Abbring have shown impressive speed. Their Super 2000 Skodas made it into the top-10 more often then not, and VW will like to keep that momentum in 2013. So far only Sebastien Ogier is confirmed, the seats in the second car have not been filled yet.

Mini also have announced to be stopping their activities as a Works team, but for different reasons than Ford. They entered the sport in order to homologate their car for others to use during WRC events. Them having completed their obligations, there is no need for them to run a factory team. Mini will keep developing the car and give support to any customers. With Prodrive having run the Mini works team, it is not unlikely for them to enter the WRC as a privateer next year.

The big outsider for next year could be Hyundai, who have shown a concept car of a Hyundai i20 WRC and said they could enter the WRC as early as 2013. Unlike European brands, Hyundai is not plagued by falling sales and decreasing profits. Having no further racing activities either means there would be enough money available for them to compete as a factory team.

For Ford, many things will depend on Malcolm Wilson and his M-Sport. Ford would like to see M-Sport provide development and support for customer teams, and although M-Sport have committed to developing the Fiesta R5 Wilson said he needed to think about the future activities of M-Sport. 2013 is a definite yes, but Ford presence after that remains open.

What is also a possibility for the future is the return of another very successful manufacturer, Toyota. Over the summer rumours of them competing in the WRC with a heavily modified Yaris/Vitz emerged and were confirmed by its Motorsport President. Despite the lack of organization in the company at that moment, development on an engine had started and they hoped to be ready for 2014.

Perhaps it won't be so bad after all. With Citroën and VW next year, and possibly Hyundai and Toyota joining at least VW in 2014, there will be at least two works teams competing in the WRC. And customer teams aren't necessarily a bad thing either, as works teams often fail to give young talent a seat a WRC with less involvement of the factory teams could allow young stars to shine brighter.

WRC: World- or Western Rally Championship?

An interesting story that came up today, it is believed that the World Rally Championship manufacturers (Citroën, Ford and Mini) have proposed a calendar for 2013 in which no Rallies will be held outside Europe and the Americas. A curious case, in many ways.

First of all, why would these car manufacturers limit the scope of publicity they get via the WRC? Teams are in there to be on TV, and find customers in markets around the world. With Asia quickly becoming the largest car market in the world, it makes no sense to leave that continent behind by not rallying there.

Also, although the teams aim to get more attention in North and South America, this is also very limited, as their desire is to have ten European rallies, together with two in South America, and one in central America (Mexico probably). The WRC would become a European Championship, which would mean it would lose prestige in the world of motorsports and would also lose interest to non-European manufacturers, as they would have nothing to celebrate in their HQs in Asia, as less people would pay attention to the rallying in Europe. Subaru and Mitsubishi would be spinning in their proverbial graves.

Ironically one source said this: "The value in the American markets is enormous and we need a calendar which will reflect that. What we need now more than ever is value in return for every Euro we spend."Why leave Asia, North America and Australia out of the picture and stick with a 80% European championship?


Second, why do the teams propose a calendar prior to the FIA? The FIA does not present a calendar till May, and will probably not change that moment after the teams proposal, which leaves the rally world and fans outside Europe in doubt for another two months, not good for a championship. The only clue we have is that FIA boss Jean Todt talked about a 50/50 championship in January, with half the races in Europe, and the other half somewhere else. Something which definitely makes more sense.

The Final point I want to make is questioning if we need so many Rallies in Europe? Comparing the WRC to, say F1 we see that Formula One has 8 out of 20 races in Europe, 40% of total seems enough and fair towards other parts of the world. It covers 5 different continents, a true world championship in which the champion can really be called best of the world. WRC plans to do 10 out of 13 rallies in Europe, and will cover 2,5 continents (Central America being debatable). With some European rounds awfully close to oneanother. France's Alsace round is held a good 20 miles from the Deutschland Rally, and the Monte Carlo Rally used to be around the corner of that other French round: the Tour de Corse, which happens to be next door to the Rally of Italy at Sardinia.

Issue for a world championship is that transport costs increase for teams if they want to cover more continents, but if that is such an issue, why does the 2012 calendar feature 'Air Miles' bonus trips such as the Rally Mexico - Portugal - Argentina trio? Two long trips to America back to Europe and to America again in six weeks does not make sense.

But let's not forget, the season is only two rallies underway now, we don't have a champion yet, and the next season will not kick off for a good 10 months. Enjoy the Rallies outside of Europe, and hope they'll be there next year too.