Posts Tagged ‘estonia’

The truth about the Suzuki rumours – no comeback in sight

Sunday, April 26th, 2009

One week ago I wrote about the potential Suzuki comeback rumoured in an Estonian newspaper and quoting former Suzuki driver Urmo Aava. The information sounded trustworthy and it was well in line with what I had previously heard, but now I know better. The rumours are mostly bullshit, the quotes are quite far from correct and a Suzuki comeback seems to be quite far away. My source is close to Urmo Aava and has a very big hand in his WRC bid, so this time information should be right, I’m afraid…

Last weeks rumour comes from the Estonian newspaper Postimees, and is written by a guy called Peep Pahv. Pahv called Urmo asking questions about the matter, and Urmo told he had no comments. Pahv chose to interpret that as if he was right in whatever information/ideas he had about a Suzuki comeback – and wrote the article. So, basically Urmo said nothing but Pahv still rendered a big article on the Suzuki comeback.

Quite opposite to the comeback rumours – Nobuhiro “Monster” Tajima has brought Suzuki to court after a conflict starting with Tajima’s retirement from the Suzuki WRT top position last year and the retirement of the team. My contact, who has very good insight into the WRC scene, believes that Suzuki is very tired of rallying after all problems related to the WRC assault, and that a comeback to rallying is really far away.

So, I guess the conclusion is that we shall forget about the Suzuki rumours and go back into the position we were two weeks ago, when a Suzuki comeback was still quite far away. Not very good news to the WRC, I’m afraid.

Urmo Aava’s season in jeopardy because of budget trouble

Monday, February 16th, 2009

Just a bit more than a month ago, Urmo Aava presented his plans for 2009 with a drive in Stobart Ford. Aava has struggled during the first two rallies of the season. In Ireland he went off after an initial impressive performance, and in Norway he finished quite low down the standings after struggling the whole weekend.

Now, it also seems that Aava’s budget is far from complete – and Stobart is just paying a small amount of Aava’s budget this year. From what I know, the rest is mostly paid by some local Estonian companies and the Estonian tourism authority. Obviously, Aava is having problems to get enough money out there, which may cause him to miss some or all of the remaining rallies in the season.

Aava’s schedule until now has been Rally Ireland, Rally Norway, Rally of Portugal, Rally Italia-Sardinia, Rally Poland, Tour de Corse (France), Spain and Wales Rally GB.