Now, even Rally NZ seems to have understood the truth. Chris Carr, chairman of the rally, says that “it’s always fire behind the smoke you see”. Interesting enough, Neil Allport, former NZ Rally Champion, says that lack of money is behind the decision and that the government should put the adequate money in. Strange, since NZ from what I know always have been backed by nothing else than a loooot of government money… However, I can understand they’re disappointed – and I am too. NZ is a traditional rally with wonderful views and an exotic kind of environment… The thing is probably that their market is too small.

The big fail in this discussion may be Rally Norway. They’ve made two good rallies – but they’ve also done mistakes. They have overestimated themselves big time (and that’s their biggest mistake if you ask me). I remember their plans for 2007 that I once got presented – and it was utopia. They had got quite a lot of government money, but they also calculated huge incomes from spectators, sponsoring, etc.The figures was almost 10 times the corresponding numbers of Rally Sweden. Norway did all kinds of extravagancies that year, and of course they blew it totally from a financial point of view – no matter any government money. From what I know, they lowered their calculations drastically for their next event, but obviously not enough. There was less delight of the news from the public in Norway in 2009, and the reports I got from competitors in the rally was that there was really few spectators.

No matter the economics, you can’t take from the Norweigans that they have arranged two really good events – with the media coverage in the 2007 event being my favourite point. Their problem now is unstable economy, the fact that they’re not a traditional event and the fact that they’re running on snow. But maybe even management!? They have always been so overconfident. Now it seems like their managers expected Norway to be first reserve for 2011 – but according to the latest news Poland (that has been completely silent so far!) is the first reserve. Erik Veiby, chairman of the Rally Norway board, says this is just speculations and of course it is, but honestly… I agree that nothing is decided and that things can for sure change – but it’s obvious to everyone that Rally Norway is now in deep shit. I bet that (no matter what Erik Veiby says!) they are now working hard with lobbying on all kind of levels and trying to get to know why they’re out of the calendar and how they can change it.

The approach from organisers struggling to find the grip needed to stay in the calendar is starting to look like an interesting game. The silly thing is that all this started a few years ago with the FIA letting people “buy” candidate events to the left and right by just paying a big fee to them (read more in my post on the rotation system from last year). After the organisers have paid those fees, they of course expected to get an event for it! So, FIA made this stupid rotating calendar and everyone got their events. Now, they have realized the obvious – that it doesn’t work. And many of the payers (and some others) stand there without their events again like they never had one… It’s stupid multiplied by a thousand.

No matter what, I’m looking forward to see how this game continues – and I hope (but doubt – Abu Dhabi on special built roads, come on!?!) it ends up with the best events!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Of course this may have worried Chris – we will never know that, but I doubt so. Norweigan youngster Andreas Mikkelsen and his co-driver Ola Floene drove as gravel crew for Henning and recommended him to go for the tarmac tyre, since only the first three km’s of the stage were muddy and wet. From what I know Atko went off almost immediately, so probably he hadn’t had very much time to worry about his wrong tyre choice – and Henning’s talk seems to be more of a funny thing and a PR trick than the actual reason he won the fight. Probably Atkinson would have gone off anyway, since he seems to have problems keeping off the throttle in tight battles. If he wouldn’t – there’s a good chance Henning would have won anyway because of the better tyre choice.

No matter what, such small stories where tyre choices and strategy seems to be crucial is good to the sport – and I’ve went from being a supporter of the control tyre to missing the unpredictability of different tyre brands. Those strategy stories are just lovely and I hope to see more them – they’re just one of those things that makes rallying fun!

It became a weekend exactly as expected as anyone could fear in Ireland. Loeb first and Sordo second. Hirvonen trying to challenge – but ending up in third and Jari-Matti Latvala failed to finish. One of the few surprises was that Pirellis Sottozero winter-tyres in many situations proved to be better suited to the conditions than the tarmac tyres because of the extremely heavy rain. Once again, tyre choices on tarmac proved crucial – but in the end of the first day everyone had learnt about the Sottozero advantage – and everything was back to normal in the results table.

Before the rally I hoped that Chris Atkinson would show new strength landing in a new car – the Citroen C4 WRC. Partially he did, as he showed some good speed on the second day. However, he also proved that he wants too much by making two off road excursions. One was a really serious high-speed accident on day one where the crew should be really happy to escape uninjured – and one happened on the last day. The later one was really a disappointment, since it happened while Atko was battling Henning Solberg for fourth place. Looking back in Atkinson’s records he has gone off way too many times while battling for places. By now, he really should have learnt to keep high speed while staying exactly within the limit. However, I still hope that Atko can get the finances ready for more rallies to show his speed. Subaru was a really bad car and it’s not easy to get into a new car and deliver immediately – especially not in the Irish conditions this weekend – so he should get a few chances more. Atko himself named Greece and Australia as possible rallies to drive.

Unfortunately, also Urmo Aava proved to be the same old Urmo as ever. He is really fast and for a short while in the beginning he led the rally. I hoped for him to stay on the road, but already on SS6 he ended up somewhere off the stage. He got back into the rally an ended 10th, but that doesn’t mean too much. I don’t know why it happens, but now that Urmo has a fast car to drive for almost a whole season he really needs to switch focus. He should start off slow (many others go embarassingly slow, so why not him?) and then slowly increase the speed until he reaches that limit where he can’t go faster without going off. Everyone in the business knows that he can be fast – but everyone also knows that he rarely stays on the road. I think he could do really good results even if he stayed at 98-99% of his capacity – and then with much lower risk to go off.

Luckily, Rally Ireland also offered some small but still good surprises. Reigning JWRC champion Sebastien Ogier only did his second rally in a WRC car but managed to finish sixth, scoring three championship points. Even though Ogier wasn’t very fast I consider this very promising. If he can manage to score sixth place in his second WRC rally, there should be no problem finding the speed when he has collected some more WRC experience. But by finishing such a difficult rally as Ireland, he shows a mature and serious approach. In two weeks Ogier has scored an IRC win in difficult Monte Carlo and then a sixth place in Ireland – which is a really, really impressive performance.

Second happy surprise was Henning Solberg, finishing the rally just outside the podium. Henning has consistently been a catastrophe on tarmac, but on the gravel-like bumpy tarmac in Ireland he found his pace. With the new, top-spec Ford Focus he managed to do some okay stagetimes and most important he stayed cold in the battle with Chris Atkinson. After seeing Henning do such a decent result on tarmac, you can’t keep from wondering what he will be up to in Norway in two weeks? I’ve seen him on snow a number of times – and even since I don’t consider Henning top notch WRC material I think he can really battle for the win in Norway. I would be really, really surprised if he didn’t beat Petter – at least if he manages to stay on the road with an intact car. We’ll see in two weeks – in a rally that hopefully is a little bit less predictable than Ireland…

Latvala has retired after an early puncture that has spoiled his car – disappointing since he got his first ever WRC podium last time in Ireland in 2007.

I’ll get back later with more perspective on Rally Ireland.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thanks to redmistproductions.

I think a few things are extra interesting regarding this event:

• How’s everybodys shape? This is the first of three races (Ireland-Tarmac, Norway-Snow, Cyprus-Gravel/Tarmac) that will show a sign of what everyone is up to on different surfaces.
• How will the Stobart guys and Citroen Juniors perform? What does Atkinson think about the C4, is Ogier’s good flow over or may he be a new Loeb? Will Henning charge now that he is said to have the best possible Ford backing – or will he wait for Norway?
• Will the temperature stay well over zero? After the difficulties in Wales and Japan last year with ice and snow, Pirelli has now made sure to bring their SottoZero tyre (no studs) to Ireland as a backup. If weather would change towards ice and snow the event will become really interesting and tyre choices will be crucial.
•  And of course… Who will win? Sebastien Loeb is – as always on tarmac – a big favourite for sure. But you should not remember that the tarmac on Ireland is not like anywhere else. It’s twisty, narrow and bumpy and not at all like Monte, Germany or Corsica. The narrowness also makes one single mistake very likely to be fatal. Can he keep up the spirit?

But maybe most important…

• Can competitiors, Rally Ireland organisers, FIA and ISC together make the event interesting? I followed the IRC season opener Rally Monte Carlo last weekend and many people with me – and what I saw was stunning. Top fights in almost every stage, amazing live coverage on TV/web and an interesting strategy game with tyre choices, different levels of attack, etc. They set the level – and it is high!

On Monday Henning Solberg (Stobart) were scheduled to do his test, but a tragic incident stopped everything. Just when the test were scheduled to start, the team lost contact with one of the marshals that made sure noone got into the closed road. When the team got there they found out that the marshal had tragically had a heart attack. The ambulance arrived soon after, but the 60 years old man’s life couldn’t be saved.

Let’s hope for more luck in the rally than in the tests for Ford.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Video by Mitybuck20. Thanks!

Click here to view the embedded video.

In this video you can see an interview, the test with and even Atkinson taking notes for the test:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Atkinson himself, who has previously spent all his WRC career in a Subaru, was really impressed by the Citroen. We’ve heard it before regarding both the C4 and the Xsara, that you can attack hard into turns and still have very good control and balance of the car – facts that Atkinson immediately agreed on and told the journalists.

Looking forward to Ireland, Atkinson is probably happy to have done a full day of testing on roads that he thought were representative of the roads back in Ireland. The last time he went out of a rally car before that was in Wales, were he crashed badly and was transfered by helicopter to hospital – luckily unhurt though. Anyway, it must have been a psychological relief for him to manage to do some good testing between the accident and the rally – especially considering what happened with Subaru and that he’s now getting into a totally new car for him. After all the years struggling in problematic Subaru, it will also be really, really interesting to all of us to see how Atkinson can perform in Citroen.

Finally, just as a parenthesis, I think it seems more and more obvious that Atkinson is not planning to do just one rally in Citroen. Considering the fact that he’s launching a new website soon, he has started a Citroen branded YouTube user, he promotes the Australian Citroen dealer in his YouTube movie and other things – it seems unlikely he would do everything just because of a one-time rally. If he’s not doing a full season (except Norway) in the C4 – I at least expect that all rallies he manages to start in this season will be in the Citroen.

This nice video by Enda Healy shows a few of the rounds done by Daniel Sordo in the test:

Click here to view the embedded video.

However, the semi-works teams add a few surprises. First off, I didn’t expect both Henning Solberg and Urmo Aava to be nominated for Stobart, as I expected (well, not hoped) Matthew Wilson to be nominated. But this is not the only surprise. Also the Citroen Junior Team surprises by chosing Conrad Rautenbach instead of Sebastien Ogier as their points scorer alongside Chris Atkinson.