WRC: Wales rally GB review.

So hello Rally and Cross readers. In case you don't know me I'm Tiff and I usually write about Formula One. But I do have a secret passion for the WRC.
So I was truly honoured when Martijn asked me to write a review for the Wales rally GB.
Now being British. This means I get to start by writing about my home race. Winner.

Now being British also means I get British coverage of the Rally, which sadly now is pretty dire. Ten years ago the WRC used to be on prime time terrestrial TV, then it fell in to the clutches of cable TV and then even more further into almost obscurity by being on to a specialist motors TV channel. Now don't get me wrong Motors TV which covers the WRC do a pretty good job with the limited resources they have. It just means that I'm doing a review based on just ninety minutes of coverage.
But I aim to do my best for you readers of Rally and Cross and hopefully this won't be the last you see of me on the blog.

So we head into round ten with Sebastien Loeb fifty four points ahead of Mikko Hirvonen but with Wales rally GB usually being Ford territory. It will be interesting to see if Citroen can do anything about it.
What will also be interesting is how the weather will affect play. Especially because the UK is notoriously rainy and wet and I personally can testify to this.

And of course it was raining for start of day one.

After Stage One, Ford took the rains. (Take the pun if you will) and it was Petter Solberg who took charge over Mads Ostberg and Jari-Matti Latvala.

Stage Two and Three saw a change of the guard. With Loeb starting to play catch up to a race that he doesn't even need to win. Solberg after a cracking Stage One still kept his foot in the door and seemed confident in Wales. Though Stage Two and Three didn't seem to be fun times for everyone. As Ott Tanak can testify when power steering started to fail on him.
SS3 saw Latvala take the lead of the rally and declare that this was his favourite stage.
It seems that Latvala is finally starting to enjoy himself after a dire few months.

Stage Five saw Loeb start to lose time to the Ford's meanwhile team mate Hirvonen had a case of the Jenson Button's and started to complain about a lack of grip. A gripe that would continue for most of the rally.

The last stage of day one bought one of only a few hairy moments throughout the whole rally. With Solberg almost falling off the road, even though the track was starting to dry off.
Latvala started to put consistency together to bring the Ford home and keep the lead of the rally at the end of day one.

1. Latvala 1:25:05
2. Solberg +12.1
3. Loeb +21.3
4. Ostberg + 32.6
5. Hirvonen +53.8

Day Two of the rally started off a bit like my eyesight. Foggy. Though for Thierry Neuville the start of Day Two ended up more soggy then foggy, when water started coming into the car. Even at one point ending up on the pace notes. Hirvonen was still massively frustrated with his lack of traction and grip, which still hadn't been sorted from the previous day. The start of Day Two was great for Ostberg though who took his first stage win on Stage Seven, his first stage win for three years.



The second half of Day Two was finally clear of fog and also for once stayed dry. Stage Eleven and Twelve saw Loeb attempt to catch Solberg. Loeb trying to take every point out of anyone he can, but sadly for Loeb Solberg responded to Loeb's advances and held on to second place at the end of Day Two.

1. Latvala 2:18:05
2. Solberg +24.5
3. Loeb +30.9
4. Ostberg +49.9
5. Hirvonen +1.22

Day Three saw the start of the battle for the minor placings with Evgeny Novikov and Ott Tanak. Tanak started to make a charge on Novikov but then sadly made a mistake, never truly recovered and ended up losing out on a chance at sixth place.
Talking of struggling. Ostberg started Day Three with a continuing mis-fire problem, which meant he struggled going fast uphill. Sadly this isn't good in Wales as it is pretty hilly.
In Stage Fifteen and Sixteen we started to see Loeb take charge to try and take second place away from Solberg. Sadly Solberg started to crumble and slowly started to lose small increments of time which led to Loeb taking Second place away from him.

The second half of Day Three saw Ostberg still struggling with his mis-fire from earlier in the day, but he still kept up the pace to safely secure a great fourth place in Wales. Loeb managed to keep hold on to his position and retain second place.
So we see Latvala strike an impressive performance to win the Wales rally GB. Not only with style but also with bags of confidence.
I literally can't wait to see what the next three rounds will hold.

So the Wales rally GB Top Ten ended like this.

1. Jari-Matti Latvala 3:03:40
2. Sebastien Loeb +27.8
3. Petter Solberg +28.7
4. Mads Ostberg +1.10
5. Mikko Hirvonen +1.29
6. Evgeny Novikov +3.37
7. Thierry Neuville +4.11
8. Matthew Wilson +6.00
9. Martin Prokop +6.58
10. Nasser Al Attiyah +9.32



Hope you enjoyed my review of the Wales rally GB.
If you like Formula One as well then you can also read my blog here.
You can also follow me on twitter @squiffany

Rally Review - IRC Yalta Rally

Stars shine in their absence

by Martijn Kösters

The Intercontinental Rally Challenge set up camp around Yalta in the Ukraine for the 10^th round of this year's championship. A major disappointment came at that start of the Rally, when an inspection of the entry list learned that none of the big names in the IRC (as there are Mikkelsen, Kopecký, Hänninen or even youngsters like Wiegand) took part in this year's event.

Instead the field consisted of three Fiesta S2000s, a Fabia S2000, a 207 S2000, an Impreza R4 and two Lancer Evo R4s. A total of 8 cars would compete in the major class of this event. Further look at the entry list reveals a lot of Citroën C2 and Fiesta in R2 regulation, and old Citroën Saxo and more curiously a VAZ 2112 and 11193, which I would love to see in Rally trim. 

 

Even though the amount of entries was limited, this would not necessarily have to stand in the way of an interesting Rally, yet there were two drivers who were clearly superior to the rest. Mikko Pajunen (Fin) and Yuri Protsarov (Ukr) (both in Fiestas) could comfortably beat the rest of the field by a margin of 30 seconds on a 20 kilometer stage, which meant that after a combined hour of timed stages the gap to third was over 100 seconds, and fourth place was 3,5 minutes down the road.

When Pajunen had to retire after a stage 5 crash this left Protsarov lonely at the top of the standings, and most excitement seemed gone from the Rally. Further down Yagiz Avci was in second, 2.29 behind Protsarov and 2.03 ahead of Romainian Tempestini. Protsarov picked up a puncture on SS7 which cost him three minutes and the lead, which he retook after a storming drive on SS8, winning the stage by a full minute. Troubles on sunday morning put him out of the Rally. Stages on sunday afternoon saw only 14 teams left, Avci initially lead the Skoda S2000 of Hungarian Vicin, but a great drive of Robert Consani in a 2WD (!) Renault Mégané was rewarded with second place at the end of the rally.

The Prime Yalta Rally again showed a trend of inflation ongoing in the IRC, where in previous years a three-way battle between top-level drivers was guaranteed at every event, the 2012 IRC is a championship where many stars disappeared, and the few left are acting on a part-time basis. The fact that a 2WD car made it to the podium is partly due to Consani's driving capabilities, but mostly down to the lack of competition.

So far, Championship leader Andreas Mikkelsen was the only driver to compete in every Rally until this weekend. Juho Hänninen, thanks to three victories and a second place, is second in the standings. Note that he only had to compete in four rallies to secure 2^nd in the championship. Comparing the IRC to its big brother WRC, we see that the WRC has 15 drivers who have taken part in two-thirds or more of the events in the championship. In the IRC, only four drivers achieve this criteria, compared to ten last year. The Intercontinental Rally Challenge really needs to step up its game in order to remain the biggest championship behind the WRC. It is already not Intercontinental anymore, and it is now risking losing its appeal as a major championship.

Special Announcement: We're back!

I admit freely, after setting up this blog in March I failed to provide infromation beyond the 140 characters on @Rallycross_ERC.

Yet, Although, But and Also.... We are back, and properly back that is.


This weekend the Iconic Wales Rally GB is driven oncemore, and there will be a report, yes. But not any ordinary report, we have got our own "local correspondent". A good friend of mine Mrs. Tiffany Fletcher (And do read her blog here) has taken an interest in the World Rally Championship. And what way to complement the British round of the WRC than with a British entry on the blog.



For now, enjoy the Rallies (IRC Yalta Rally this weekend too) and look forward for posts this weekend.


The @Rallycross_ERC TEAM