The 2017 Rallying thread

[GravelBen]

Slippydiff said:

I suspect the new cars may suit some drivers better than others, hence they'll be more drivers challenging for wins in 2017, whether Paddon is one of them remains to be seen. As we know, the cream ALWAYS rises to the top. Let's see where this goes ...

Absolutely, time will tell!

[epom]

Alex Langheck said:

I'd like to see Hyundai enter Paddon in some European Tarmac events in the R5 car; it would benefit them both - whether that happens is another matter.

Plenty of them for him to do here. Rally of The Lakes, Galway, Circuit of Ireland to name a few

[Slippydiff]

GravelBen said:

I think it may be also that the win changed public/fan expectations more quickly than he anticipated, and that put extra pressure on to keep pushing harder. Apart from the two crashes, I think his results after the win were probably still as good as or better than many would have expected at the start of that season? (3-5-5-6-4-4-4)

From his comments on facebook etc he has had a long-term development plan well in advance, and that plan didn't really expect to win events in 2016 - it was more about gaining experience and consistent speed to have a more focussed push in 2017/18. His 2017 push hasn't started well though unfortunately!

He strikes me as being fairly resilient and tough mentally (a normal NZ'er trait in my experience). Sure, one can never tell what effect these things will have on an individual, but the one thing he can't do is in any way blame himself. My guess is he'll move on and bounce back in short order. Let's hope so.

[RyanTank]

Slowly catching up with the TV stuff. Watched the first RedBull TV programme so far and very impressed, the presenter is great and Mark Webber and Matt Wilson work. tho tbh I'd take Neil Cole over Desborough any day right now!

Great drive by the other M-Sport boys, Ogier taking the win with luck on his side. I did expect Tanak to outshine him in the Fiesta considering the longer period of seat time hes had over Seb. Hell of a weekend for Evans after the opening days tyre/set up issues.

Toyota surprised pretty much everyone i think. I wasn't expecting them to be attacking the podium quite so quickly. lets see if its not just a case of the others falling away gifting them the good result?

With regards to Paddon, I think hes got more to come, hews still fairly green with regards to being top flight WRC driver. and I don't think anyone expected him to be outshining Sordo or Neuville (granted TN was on low form for the start of last season). He'd probably have benefited from being under Malcolm Wilson's nurture programme. JML was crap on tarmac for a long time so MW sent him off circuit racing to hone some skills on track hoping that he'd be able to transfer those back to the stages, and I think it worked.

I expect the next few events to be a mix of results for everyone while they all bed in to the new cars, and once Ogier finds that set up that works in the car he will be back on top, I expect him to find his spot just in time for all the tarmac rounds, and we all know how good he is first on the road in those events!


As a longtime M-Sport fanboy I do hope Malcolm get all the help he can from the factory now we have the champion in the car and are winning events again, I think we all know they've deserved a win in the last 5 years!
What I wouldn't like is for Ford to come back and swoop it all up as their success, their involvement has been minimal since they pulled out and everything M-Sport has done since then deserves praise to them.
That being said, I agree that unless Ford bring the big bucks back then I don't see Ogier staying for more than one season. it speaks volumes that only his car is shod in RedBull logos and not Tanak's too.


Here's hoping the rest of this season passes without incident! tho I do foresee more stage cancellations in coming events

[Allyc85]

Interesting piece on the new C3 Wrc, I have to agree with it too.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/127881...

Unlike the other cars at no point did it look fast at all, and Meeke seemed to have no confidence in it, driving with much less flamboyance than normal. Hopefully as said it is indeed an event specific issue.

[bananachips]

I agree, in most of the test videos that I seen it didn't look like it had the poise or punch of the others especially the Hyundai. They may have done a Prodrive and built too big a car.

[Slippydiff]

Slow day in the Autosport office ? Ogier rarely looked as committed as Tanak or Breen (though I have seen a couple of TY videos where Seb was on it) but the stand outs pace wise were Tanak and Neuville.
Neuville looked awesome out of the blocks on Thursday evening. Breen looked as if he had all the confidence in the world as wrung his car's neck everywhere, dry tarmac or ice ans snow.
The Toyota's looked fast but tricky, but that seemed to suit JML's driving style just fine

I wouldn't be discounting Citroen just yet though ....

[Allyc85]

Indeed, I really do hope Kris and Craig ram my stage side observations down my throat!

Damn these new cars are bloody quick!

https://youtu.be/Kh5b5t1QbKw

[GravelBen]

bananachips said:

I agree, in most of the test videos that I seen it didn't look like it had the poise or punch of the others especially the Hyundai.

In most of the testing videos it looked extremely stable and poised IMO, but its possible in hindsight that it just wasn't going as fast (or they just tested in the wrong conditions). I'm sure we'll see how it goes over the rest of the season.

Edited by GravelBen on Wednesday 25th January 20:40

[GarageQueen]

missed this thread - which channel is showing the coverage?

[df76]

GarageQueen said:

missed this thread - which channel is showing the coverage?

BT Sport and Red Bull TV showing live coverage, with Channel 5 providing highlights on the Monday.

[Slippydiff]

Allyc85 said:

Indeed, I really do hope Kris and Craig ram my stage side observations down my throat!

Damn these new cars are bloody quick!

https://youtu.be/Kh5b5t1QbKw

Think Toyota need to take a look at their gearing ....

But all joking aside, there doesn't look much wrong with the 2017 Citroen in these tests :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmjF6WchEuM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2ZEmTnpQCo

[thepawbroon]

Sone news from the 2017 Beatson's Building Supplies Mull Rally:



http://mullrally.org/category/news/

[bananachips]

Okay maybe I didn't watch enough because I retract my previous statement. It may have been put down to conditions and pressures to perform.

[GravelBen]

Is this someone from here? PH smiley on the rear panel...

https://www.facebook.com/alittlebitsideways/photos...

[Jerry Can]

Allyc85 said:

Indeed, I really do hope Kris and Craig ram my stage side observations down my throat!

Damn these new cars are bloody quick!

https://youtu.be/Kh5b5t1QbKw

yet their top speed seems to be limited to 190kph when last years cars were doing 200kph. Might be the wing causing drag, but then they have more power.

Stage 14, Breen in the Ds3, v WRC 17 cars, and he is only 1 sec per km slower than the fastest. ( that was a dry stage with comparable tyres) I would have thought the new cars would be a lot quicker per km than that.

But they do look and sound great.

[GravelBen]

Jerry Can said:

yet their top speed seems to be limited to 190kph when last years cars were doing 200kph. Might be the wing causing drag, but then they have more power.

Pretty sure I saw speeds over 200 shown on one of the live stages I watched, unless my memory is worse than I thought.

Monte isn't one of the fastest rallies either though - Sweden/Finland/Poland are much faster.

[Alex Langheck]

Monte is notoriously unreliable for comparisons - I'd wait until later in the year for proper view on speed differences.

[epom]

GravelBen said:

Is this someone from here? PH smiley on the rear panel...

https://www.facebook.com/alittlebitsideways/photos...

Henry Catchpole from Evo Mag is it not ?

[Slippydiff]

Jerry Can said:

yet their top speed seems to be limited to 190kph when last years cars were doing 200kph. Might be the wing causing drag, but then they have more power.

Stage 14, Breen in the Ds3, v WRC 17 cars, and he is only 1 sec per km slower than the fastest. ( that was a dry stage with comparable tyres) I would have thought the new cars would be a lot quicker per km than that.

But they do look and sound great.

The 2017 cars are about as aerodynamic as a bus. The 2016 cars were narrower, slippier and had better cD figures as a result I'd imagine. I'm not sure if the torque figures for the 2017 cars have been published by any of the manufacturers yet ? But whilst the Hp figures have increased, I'd imagine the 1600 cc engines (even with larger restrictors) are struggling to reach the figures the late 2.0 WRC cars managed, or indeed the 38/40 mm restricted Group A cars (4 doorImpreza 555 etc.)