Posts Tagged ‘off road’
Monday, February 15th, 2010
Rally Sweden was amazing – I’ll post my reflections and photos later, probably tomorrow (Tuesday). Until then, watch some of the excellent videos posted from the event:
The junction where a LOT of people went off (a bit into the movie):
Hirvonen and Loeb challenging on Colin’s Crest (Vargåsen):
Kimi Räikkönen crashing on Sågen:
Stunning onboard with Mikko Hirvonen on Vargåsen:
First day video:
Second day video:
Third day video:
Thanks to eslake123, MadCowYuuko, TwitChii, Sdimm, nedbis and milkowsky for the videos.
Tags: citroen c4wrc, crash, ford focus wrc, junction, kimi räikkönen, mikko hirvonen, off road, onboard, rally sweden, sebastien loeb, Video, videos
Posted in S-WRC / WRC Cup, Video, WRC | No Comments »
Sunday, February 14th, 2010
I happened to be on SS21 Värmullsåsen 2 in Rally Sweden at the same spot where Henning Solberg and Manfred Stohl went off back in 2006 (that time I think the stage was called Sundsjön). The place proved to be dramatic even this time, when Peter van Merksteijn parked his car quite a bit off the road in the right hand bend at the spot. He was lucky that there was an army of Finns, Swedes and others armed with everything from shovels to ropes ready to assist. Below is a few of my photos from the off. A larger Rally Sweden gallery incl. more photos from the off and a lot of other things will come later – and so will my reflections from the weekend…
All photos are taken by Rasmus Bjerén and protected by copyright. If you wanna share them, please link to this post and do not copy the image or link directly to it! 
Tags: 2010, crash, henning solberg, manfred stohl, off road, peter van merksteijn sr, photo, rally, rally sweden, ss21, värmullsåsen
Posted in Swedish Rallying, WRC | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
Here comes some short facts reported from the scrutineering in Karlstad tonight:
- Patrik Flodin with co-driver Göran Bergsten met a car on the recce today and had to push their car off road. They stood off road for an hour before being able to continue.
- Co-driver Göran Bergsten told that the roads today were a looot better than the cars they drove yesterday. Even Anders Gröndal seems to be of the same opinion, looking at his blog…
- The drivers doing the shakedown gets four extra tyres.
Rally Sweden scrutineering in Karlstad. Photo: Mikael Hjerpe
Tags: göran bergsten, off road, patrik flodin, rally sweden, scrutineering
Posted in S-WRC / WRC Cup, WRC | 1 Comment »
Saturday, January 30th, 2010
Räikkönen went off already on the second special stage in the Arctic Lapland Rally in Finland yesterday. Despite that, it was quite an impressive competitive debut in Citroen C4 WRC for the former Formula 1 driver. He set second fastest time already on the first special stage, and continued to post competitive times throughout the weekend, after getting back from the SS2 ditch with a big delay and time penalty.
Räikkönen’s experienced co-driver Kaj Lindström commented after SS9 that the difference to Sordo was 0.9 seconds per kilometer, and at the same time stated that the duo knew they were going slowed than they could – partly because the car setting still wasn’t 100% adapted to Räikkönen’s preferences. Even Kimi himself said at the that he didn’t think it would be very difficult to drive faster, since he knew that the car wasn’t really as he wanted it to be.
Personally, I think Räikkönen got a good and really impressive start. An early off was probably just good for him, since that showed him exactly were the limit was and it also took the overall placement totally off his shoulders. With nothing to fight for in the rally, Kimi could put his focus just on improving his own driving and the car while still having the possibility to compare himself to others, stage by stage.
What I doubt a little bit more is the easiness of going faster. Kimi seems perfectly comfortable by being slower as he knows it’s “the car settings’ fault”. That’s probably perfectly true, but that’s also half the challenge in rallying. You must get a good setup of the car that works from stage to stage. Of course F1 is also much about fine tuning of car settings, but the conditions there are often a little bit more stable. In rallying you’re driving for a longer time and over longer distances, and conditions may vary much or extremely much (Rally Monte Carlo is the perfect example). That’s a part of the challenge and shouldn’t be underestimated.
However, to sum it up I’m really impressed by Kimi’s performance – and it will be a big pleasure to see his developments throughout the season. Go Kimi!
Tags: 2010, accident, arctic rally, arctic rally lapland, car, citroen c4 wrc, dani sordo, formula 1, kimi räikkönen, off road, settings
Posted in National Rallying, Rally testing | 1 Comment »
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
A new spectacular video of Kris Meeke’s off in Rally Monte Carlo this week has appeared, uploaded by a spectator standing just meters from the place where Meeke went off at Pont de la Gageyre on the stage Labatie d’Andaure.
Here is the video:
I’ve previously posted a clip of the crash from Eurosports footage here.
Thanks to dbe07 for the video.
Tags: 2010, accident, crash, kris meeke, labatie d'andaure, off road, pont de la gageyre, rally monte carlo, Video
Posted in IRC, Video | No Comments »
Thursday, January 21st, 2010
Here is the clip from Eurosport where Kris Meeke crashed his Peugeot out of Rally Monte Carlo 2010 on stage 5, the first stage of the second day. Kris told that he was breaking well in time for the right turn, but thought he braked a little bit too much, released the break for a while and then went into the start of the bridge before dropping off in the ditch on the left side of the road. Luckily both Meeke and co-driver Nagle escaped unharmed.
Thanks to dragracing3 for the video.
Tags: 2010, accident, bridge, kris meeke, off, off road, paul nagle, rally monte carlo, retire, retirement, Video
Posted in IRC, Video | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
Many people following the rally reports from Rally Monte Carlo today have probably noticed and wondered about the fact that Ogier was so angry after going off the stage – and how the hell spectators can come to the idea to put snow on the road just to sabotage for the drivers (If you don’t know what I’m talking about – watch the video!). I can’t answer that question, but it’s certainly a big problem for the Rally Monte Carlo organisers that they need to solve. This has been going on for quite some years now, and I have a feeling they’ve already tried – but I’m not sure they have tried as hard as they should…
It doesn’t even need to be explained how dangerous it is to throw snow on the road when a car potentially going on slicks are approaching assuming conditions are like they were just a few hours before when the ice note crew went through. In road traffic you should have margins for such things – but not in rallying. That’s what rallying is about… Driving without that extra margins, using the skills and the interaction between driver and co-driver to get the car through the stage as fast as possible… The spectators doing those things have no interest in rallying, they are just losers. But in the end – if the spectators can’t handle it themselves, it’s the responsibility of the organiser to get it solved.
With that said, I love the Rally Monte Carlo and that has been even more clear to me in 2009 and 2010 with the beautiful live TV coverage. But I can actually say I’m happy the event is out of the WRC as long as this problem stays as big as it is (=more of standard than exception during the rally). Get guards out to the important twists, damn organisers. I know it’s quite many but what else can you do? If you can cover everything live on TV, you can probably find one guard per turn too. This makes the rally both dangerous and a farce for crews, spectators and marshals.
I really hope this gets better!
And as a note… Mikko Hirvonen leads the rally with 41.9 seconds over last years champion Kris Meeke and 1.04 before Juho Hänninen. The action continues tomorrow – and everything is broadcasted live. Just hope the morons have been sent home then, the rally is too good to be disturbed by such shit..!
Tags: 2010, accident, live coverage, off road, rally monte carlo, safety, sebastien ogier, snow, spectators, tv
Posted in IRC | 3 Comments »
