Posts Tagged ‘mikko hirvonen’

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High hopes for an interesting WRC during the later part of the season

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

What happens? After Loeb/Citroen’s fail in Poland last weekend the WRC seems to become a little bit more interesting this year. After a spring where Loeb seemed to be more unbeatable than ever, winning five events in a row, Hirvonen has suddenly turned the championship to his favor and now leads by one point before Loeb. In the manufacturers championship, Ford is still quite behind Citroen (17pts), but even there it’s everything but over. Sordo isn’t as stable as Loeb, there are plenty of races to go and the season so far has really shown how fast things change.

I guess that Rally Finland in the end of July/beginning of August will be very, very important for both Ford and Citroen. If Loeb can win on Hirvonen’s (and Latvala’s) home soil, Citroen will have a really good position considering that Rally Catalunya is one of the three remaining rallies after that. Loeb will of course be a huge favourite on the Spanish tarmac surface!

But if Loeb and Citroen doesn’t play their cards right in Finland, Hirvonen will extend his lead in the championship, boosting him and putting quite some pressure on Loeb. Then Loeb will have some pressure to make the odds even again by winning in Catalunya – which would leave the championship totally open again. Besides Finland and Catalunya there are Rally Australia and the season closer Wales Rally GB left on the calendar – two rallies where I don’t feel that either Loeb or Hirvonen have a real advantage. It will for sure be an interesting battle – and for the sake of thrill… Let’s hope that Hirvonen (or Latvala?) is fastest in Finland!

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Rally d’Italia-Sardinia: Latvala proves his pace

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

Rally d’Italia-Sardinia became the rally where Jari-Matti Latvala once again would prove his speed. After leading the car-breaking rally from the very first stage until the end, maybe he can throw some water on the fires of all people yelling after Rally of Portugal. Then, everyone seemed to want him replaced in the Ford team… Anyway, I stick to my opinon about the time it takes to create a new star in the WRC, and as I said already in April Latvala’s team-mate Mikko Hirvonen is one of the best evidences ever that a crash-king can soon become a regular and stable podium contender. Now, I guess we can just hope this win comes as a confidence boost for Latvala making him step off just a little but still being fast in the next rallies and allowing for Ford to take back some of Citroen’s big advantage in the manufacturers championship. That would make the WRC a little bit more exciting…

Something that seems to be exciting all the time this year is the production car WRC. In Sardinia, the rally ended with Nasser al-Attiyah leading the field, taking the lead from Patrik Sandell with just 1.5 seconds on the very last stage. Annoying for Sandell, who took over the lead from his countryman Patrik Flodin on Saturday, when Flodin was hit by trouble. This means Al-Attiyah leads the championship with 31pts ahead of Araujo on 29pts and Sandell on 28pts. PWRC will be a tough battle until the end, it seems!

Other interesting things in this rally:

  • Loeb is under investigation for a wheel change made on Saturday. Probably the subject of investigation is if the car was moving at any time when Loeb or Elena wasn’t seated. If so – this would be against the rules and should be punished, as with Duval in Japan a few years ago. This means, Loeb may lose his position…
  • Petter Solberg caught the third place, ahead of Sordo (who retired after turbo problems) and Loeb who took the fourth place. Loeb was really happy with his new car spec after shakedown, and seemed to settle well with it during the weekend after some overheating problems on stage one. Now, the big question is what Citroen will do… I’ll make a separate post about that since it’s really an interesting question.
  • Despite having ran Cyprus a few months ago, Sardinia seems to be the most car-breaking even of the season so far… (Henning, Rautenbach, Sordo, Ogier, Loeb’s puncture, Petter’s  [and all the others'] overheating)

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Rally Argentina – the #5 event

Sunday, April 26th, 2009

Rally Argentina’s number this year is five. It was the fifth event of the year, it was Loeb’s fifth win of the year and it was Loeb’s fifth consecutive win in Argentina. It sounds cool – but I’m afraid it’s more bad than good.

After a first day with Sordo, Latvala and Hirvonen still in the fight about the lead, Loeb went into his common leading position on Saturday and kept it for the rest of the rally. For a long time, Jari-Matti Latvala looked to take a good position after his disappointing results recently – but on the 19th stage he got some problems with the fuel pressure, making him finish the rally i 6th position. Almost the same happened to Petter Solberg, who lost his fuel pressure on the next stage dropping him out of the rally. All this meant that Loeb won followed by his team-mate Dani Sordo and with Henning Solberg on third place. However, I’m not very worried about Latvala since he managed to finish, the fault wasn’t his – and I still think he has potential to be a good driver. Malcolm Wilson will have to take this error on his account and keep his confidence in Latvala.

In P-WRC Al-Attiyah won in front of Ligato, very much taking Ligato out of the discussion of a P-WRC win, while it made Al-Attiyah highly actual for the same thing. He’s now in second place of the championship, having only Armindo Araujo ahead and having Patrik Sandell just one point behind.

I must say… Let’s hope for a more interesting result in the same rally  – and hopefully a one where Loeb doesn’t win, Ford takes big points and the fight is a little bit better. The Loeb/Citroen domination is killing the WRC…

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Video: Ford testing on Sardinia

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

Ford has tested on Sardinia earlier this week, including tests of the Pirelli Scorpion gravel tyre on tarmac roads (since this combo will be used on Cyprus). Here are a few videos:

Ford on tarmac with gravel tyres:
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Jari-Matti Latvala on gravel, Capoterra, 24 feb:
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Mikko Hirvonen on gravel, Capoterra, 21 feb:
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One more video, including some service shots:
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Hirvonen and Latvala – dedication in a nutshell

Monday, February 16th, 2009

Jari-Matti Latvala and Mikko Hirvonen - only a matter of time before they rule the WRC. Photo: BP Ford WRT / Les Kolczak.

Jari-Matti Latvala and Mikko Hirvonen - only a matter of time before they rule the WRC. Photo: BP Ford WRT / Les Kolczak.

I knew that Mikko Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala both were dedicated to rallying – of course everyone in the WRC top is, otherwise they wouldn’t be there. But the Ford drivers’ quotes from the post event press-conference in Norway makes me even more sure they both are upcoming dominants in the WRC. At the moment they’re just unlucky they are into the sport at the same time as the best ever rally driver who drives for the currently most consistent manufacturer. However, maybe they’ll one day be able to beat Sebastien Loeb by driving – otherwise they’ll have to wait until he gets tired of winning. But I’m sure they will win. Look at Latvala, who’s honestly angry on himself for not being able to challenge for the win in the totally crazy fight between Loeb and Hirvonen – going so fast that both the combattants seemsto be honestly surprised they stayed on the road. And look at Hirvonen, who’s wonderful passion seems to be close to madness. In the press-conference, asked about how to beat Sebastien, he said:

- I go to the next rally and try again. My son is three and a half years old, he plays with his small cars and says: “Here’s Sebastien, it’s very difficult to beat Sebastien…”. He’s going to think it’s impossible if I don’t try.

That’s dedication.

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Citroen whines about Ford’s starting order strategy – but rules are rules, aren’t they?

Saturday, February 14th, 2009

In an article in todays VG, Olivier Quesnel, team manager of Citroen WRT, complains about Mikko Hirvonens end-of-day strategy leaving the lead for Sebastien Loeb to avoid going first on the road in loose snow the next day (explanation below). Quesnel says that the spectators want to see the drivers in full speed, and that he would never allow his drivers to slow down just to get a better road position the next day.

I don’t know Olivier Quesnel, but I’m quite sure that’s not completely true. All teams in the WRC are there to win, and why wouldn’t they use the rules in the way that benefitted them the most? I agree totally with Quesnel and Loeb that the rules are unfair and that they should be changed – even Hirvonen agrees with that. But until the rules have been changed, I think they should just live with it and play the game.

Explanation:
Todays rules say that the starting order of day 2-3 is based on the standings of the day before, which means the leader go out first. Before 2008, the top 15 was reversed, so that the 15th driver in the standings went first on the road on Saturday and Sunday. The change were done to make the rallies closer, but seems instead to have resulted in strategy like the one mentioned above.

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First loop in Norway completed – close top but problems down the field

Friday, February 13th, 2009

Four stages have been run this morning i Rally Norway and the top field is close. After SS5 Kongsvinger Hirvonen leads the pack 4.8s before Sebastien Loeb. Latvala is rounding off the podium positions 25.7 after Hirvonen. The fight is close – Hirvonen took the lead on SS2 but was overtaken by Loeb on SS3 before he got the lead back on SS4.

Some people have had problems this morning, including both home runners in the Adapta World Rally Team. Anders Gröndal went off the road into a ditch on SS5. He managed to get back on the road, but the car is damaged and he is reported to have gearbox problems. Remains to see if the Adapta WRT can fix the problems in the remote service. No matter what, he is now more than 12 minutes off the lead. Also Östberg had problems on SS5 when he overtook a junction and had to reverse to get back on track. He lost around one minute on the stage and is now on 13th position – but with gearbox problems reported.

In PWRC Patrik Sandell shows the potential of the Skoda Fabia S2000 and leads the field. However, Andreas Mikkelsen has beaten Sandell in two stages in a row now, showing that the classical group N cars can still challenge. Sandell will have to look out not to be overtaken by Mikkelsen who is less than 10 seconds behind. For Flodin and Brynhildsen everything seems to have went wrong on SS5. Both have lost more than 11 minutes, but the problem is unknown. Clear is that they wont be battling for the PWRC victory.

The battle in Norway will continue at 12:51 local time with the Opaker stage.

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Video: Ford pre-Norway test in Jämtland

Monday, January 26th, 2009

Just before christmas the Ford team visited Kall, close to Östersund, in Sweden to test the Ford Focus WRC for the upcoming Rally Norway. There hasn’t been a lot of info from the test, so it’s amazing to now see a video of Mikko Hirvonen testing the car in snowy conditions. Video courtesy of Aeropibben.

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Video: Ford testing before Ireland

Monday, January 26th, 2009

Ford tested for the upcoming Rally Ireland this weekend in Monagan, Ireland – on the very same property as Loeb/Sordo was a few weeks ago. Anyway, they seemed to get good up to speed. Watch it here:

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Who drives what in WRC 2009?

Saturday, January 3rd, 2009

Despite the fact that the M1 entry time has closed for the WRC silly season is going on at it’s best. I made a quick list of entries (as far as I know) that will do at least one and probably more than one rally in the WRC 2009. However, I’m sure this list is far from complete, and some facts may be incorrect, so please make it better by adding what you know in the comments. I’ll try to update the list based on your comments as good as I can.

WRC entries

Mikko Hirvonen / Jarmo Lehtinen, Ford Focus WRC, 12 rallies
Jari-Matti Latvala / Miika Anttila, Ford Focus WRC, 12 rallies
Khalid Al-Quassimi / Michael Orr (?), Ford Focus WRC, 6 rallies

Matthew Wilson / Scott Martin, Ford Focus WRC, 12 rallies
Henning Solberg / Cato Menkerud, Ford Focus WRC, 12 rallies 
Urmo Aava / Kuldar Sikk, Ford Focus WRC, 8 rallies

Federico Villagra / Jorge Perez Companc (?), Ford Focus WRC, 8 rallies
2nd Munchis – various drivers / ?, Ford Focus WRC, 8 rallies

Peter van Merksteijn / Erwin Berkhof, Ford Focus WRC, 8 rallies
Peter van Merksteijn Jr / Eddy Chevalier, Ford Focus WRC, 8 rallies

Sebastien Loeb / Daniel Elena, Citroen C4 WRC, 12 rallies
Daniel Sordo / Marc Marti, Citroen C4 WRC, 12 rallies

Conrad Rautenbach / Daniel Barritt, Citroen C4 WRC, 12 rallies
Sebastien Ogier / Julien Ingrassia, Citroen C4 WRC, 6 rallies
Evgeny Novikov / Dale Moscatt, Citroen C4 WRC, 8 rallies
Chris Atkinson / Stephane Prevot, Citroen C4 WRC, at least 1 rally

Mads Östberg / Ole Kristian Unnerud, Subaru Impreza WRC, 8 rallies

 

So, I think that was it… Don’t beat me if I’m wrong or if I’m missing something. Just tell me in the comments, and if you can; add a source link. I’ll try to keep this list updated as good as possible.

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