The WRC 2012 Thread

[joe58]

I have to say Petter was incredible. If his power steering hadn't failed he would have been on the podium. He was incredibly fast, taking absolute ridiculous amounts of time out of the rest of the leaderboard.

[Allyc85]

He is on the podium!

Hirvonen has been excluded for a non conforming clutch, Ostberg wins!

https://twitter.com/#!/voiceofrally

[tyrrell]

That makes the championship look a lot more interesting great news for Solberg

[JWarren98]

Disappointed for Mikko, he's been my favourite driver since McRae/Burns.
But I always like Mads, showed some real potential in those old Subaru's for the last few years, glad he got that deal with Ford. Getting your 4th podium as a win isn't bad going.

[GravelBen]

Persistence paying off for Paddon, somehow ending up with the S2000 class win after electrical failure on Sat morning left him with 15 minutes to make up.

[anonymous-user]

The penalty was too extreme. Highly gutted on his behalf.

[epom]

A war of attrition, great stuff !! Good to test them out every now and again seems as they may have gone soft with no Safari Rally

[EDLT]

PSBuckshot said:

The penalty was too extreme. Highly gutted on his behalf.

I disagree, Citroen have been around long enough to know the rules. The clutch was fine at the start of the year, why change it?
Also:

"There is a secondary problem for the factory Citroen team, centred on the turbine wheel in the #2 DS3's turbocharger.

The issue with the turbine wheel is also sufficient for exclusion but this penalty has been suspended pending further investigation. The stewards' decision is due imminently."

From: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/98550

Very suspicious.

[DeltaForce]

Also means Loeb still leads the drivers table. That is pending Citroens appeal, which I think will fall on deaf ears.

[Allyc85]

PSBuckshot said:

The penalty was too extreme. Highly gutted on his behalf.

But the penalty has to be extreame to stop teams making a mockery of the homologation process/rules.

Gutted for Mikko though, hes been driving bloody well at Citreon and the move seems to have revitalised him after some slow drivers at Ford!

[melvster]

Great programme on Group B Rallying last night.

Part 1 and 2 embedded if anyone missed this programme.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w9aXI5aMjo&fea...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCrUrGeOtlA&fea...

[Allyc85]

il be watching that later

No appeal from Citreon, so Mads Ostberg is confirmed as the winner!

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/98587

[anonymous-user]

Allyc85 said:

il be watching that later

No appeal from Citreon, so Mads Ostberg is confirmed as the winner!

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/98587

He didn't seem that pleased with his win on twitter!
Think he wanted to win properly but a first win is a first win.

[iva cosworth]

"There was no performance advantage" for the non homologated clutch that got them

excluded.

Remember when a Focus WRC lost a win due to the thickness of its glass a few years ago ?

Any appeal should fail.

[anonymous-user]

Does anyone know roughly how much I can expect it to cost to go to Finland for the WRC for the 4-5 days, including cheap hotel?

[Allyc85]

I have to do Finland one day, maybe next year!

I found an interesting news article on JML and VW earlier

http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=10150774...

Im not sure two hard chargers would be the right move for the team personally!

[Emeye]

Well I finally got around to watching the Motors TV highlights of WRC Portugal and thought the coverage was pretty good - it helps that the 2 guys know their stuff. They usually do Rally Radio I think.

One question though, what is the MINI team reorganization all about? They mentioned it, but I seem to have missed any details. Cheers.

[Allyc85]

Basically the Minis of Nobre and Arujo (Spelling?) are now the works cars as they are entered for every round and allows mini to continue adding upgrades, subject to the homoligation rules.

Prodrive Mini are now a works assisted team, but are the ones that are actually developing the car! Simple... sort of!

in other news JML will miss Argentina after suffering an injury Skiing! Just about sums him up TBH!

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/98781

[GravelBen]

Allyc85 said:

in other news JML will miss Argentina after suffering an injury Skiing! Just about sums him up TBH!

Wouldn't be the first rally driver to do similar, didn't Sainz miss a few rallies after a MTB accident one year?

[EDLT]

Allyc85 said:

Basically the Minis of Nobre and Arujo (Spelling?) are now the works cars as they are entered for every round and allows mini to continue adding upgrades, subject to the homoligation rules.

Prodrive Mini are now a works assisted team, but are the ones that are actually developing the car! Simple... sort of!

in other news JML will miss Argentina after suffering an injury Skiing! Just about sums him up TBH!

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/98781

I thought Prodrive was going to do the development anyway, otherwise why would BMW need them if it was being done by their own motorsport division?

As far as I can tell, it has gone from Prodrive running two Countrymen (Countrymans?) for BMW to Prodrive running two Countrymen with BMW's money and a couple of pay-drivers.

I bet JML looked like a world class skier until he fell over, too.