The 2018 Rallying thread..(WRC, ERC, etc)

[GravelBen]

RyanTank said:

I’d like to see a Jari win, but think he’ll have manufacturer points orders.

I was thinking about that, for Paddon as well as Latvala - but its such a close battle for the manufacturers title that Hyundai and Toyota teams might both be willing to take the risk and let their drivers all go for gold, playing it safe for points isn't such a factor on the last round of the season.

Team orders might come into play for the drivers title if they don't change the manufacturers title outcome though. Hard to say which is more important to the teams.

[greeny12]

My money is on Neuville to blink first and send it off the road and into either retirement or Rally2. Then Ogier can just drive steady to the finish. Unless he drops out of the points places as a result, which ain't gonna happen, Ott can't get enough back to overhaul him even if he wins (which he will barring bad luck).

Ott, Paddon, Jari-Matti my podium prediction.

[Allyc85]

E34-3.2 said:

Tanak for the Win. Ogier champion.

Agreed. I think Neuville will throw it off trying too hard!

[RyanTank]

Allyc85 said:

E34-3.2 said:

Tanak for the Win. Ogier champion.

Agreed. I think Neuville will throw it off trying too hard!

Thierry has previous when the pressure is on. Ogier however laps it up

[Allyc85]

Shakedown live on Fb now!

https://www.facebook.com/WorldRally/videos/2224525...

[Allyc85]

A handy time chart for us brits.

https://twitter.com/samwalker170875/status/1062806...

Bt Sport have a live stage Friday night at 8pm.

[RyanTank]

Closest finish in almost a decade (or maybe longer) and I’ll miss probably all of it

[fttm]

Paddon , Ogier and JML . They really need to rid themselves of this power stage/rally 2 nonsense , maybe take a leaf out of the old BTRDA rules and do reverse seeding

[confucuis]

Breen is in second currently

Ogier ahead of Neuville by a decent margin, Tanak is ahead of Ogier but if things finish this way Ogier will take the title!

[KillianB4]

confucuis said:

Breen is in second currently

Even after murdering a Kangaroo! I hope he gets a podium this weekend, get the feeling he's driving for a seat next year at this point.

Anyone see Mikkelsen coming against the tractor??

[RyanTank]

KillianB4 said:

Even after murdering a Kangaroo! I hope he gets a podium this weekend, get the feeling he's driving for a seat next year at this point.

Anyone see Mikkelsen coming against the tractor??

Sadly I don't think Craig will have a seat at Citroen next year, the Friday curse has kicked him hard. If they do stick with a current driver as Sebs no2 then it'll likely be Mads

Yes saw the tractor incident, certainly think it contributed to his off. from the vid I saw the tractor driver knew exactly what he was doing as it looked like he was watching/waiting for a car to go by

[Allyc85]

Turns out the tractor was being used to rearrange a chicane, which Latvala had hit! The marshals thought the 3 minute gap was enough to do it, obviously not!

I watched stages 1-3 using a friends WRC+ acciunt, then kind of dozed through the other proper stages, briefly seeing Lappi stuttering after a water crossing and Ott's damaged Yaris.

[KillianB4]

RyanTank said:

Sadly I don't think Craig will have a seat at Citroen next year, the Friday curse has kicked him hard. If they do stick with a current driver as Sebs no2 then it'll likely be Mads

Certainly looks that way, I'll be gutted if he doesn't get a seat, I still think MSport could be an option but who knows. If he doesn't get a factory drive though it'll mean he will do Donegal in the 6R4 and I'll happily be there to watch it.

[GravelBen]

Allyc85 said:

Turns out the tractor was being used to rearrange a chicane, which Latvala had hit! The marshals thought the 3 minute gap was enough to do it, obviously not!

Yip not good planning from the marshall with the tractor even if the intention was good.

Probably did contribute to Mikkelsen's off as he was distracted, but he crashed over 1km away and a few corners later so it didn't directly cause it and he should really have been focussed again by then.

Lots of action today too, everyone trying pretty hard.

Edited by GravelBen on Friday 16th November 22:48

[RyanTank]

GravelBen said:

Allyc85 said:

Turns out the tractor was being used to rearrange a chicane, which Latvala had hit! The marshals thought the 3 minute gap was enough to do it, obviously not!

Yip not good planning from the marshall with the tractor even if the intention was good.

Probably did contribute to Mikkelsen's off as he was distracted, but he crashed over 1km away and a few corners later so it didn't directly cause it and he should really have been focussed again by then.

I did think it may have been there for a reason too. But as I hadn’t seen word of it until Ben just did so thought the worse of it.

I thought he crashed a corner or two after it. Certainly seemed to be in the video I watched on Twitter. Must’ve been the way they edited it to looks so
Just about to check out the RedBull coverage, only 12hrs later than hey aired it

[GravelBen]

The incar I watched looked unedited and showed the crash 3 corners after the the tractor, but there were decent straights between those corners too so it was a fair distance - IIRC the team said it was 1.2km after the tractor, could well be as it doesn't take long to cover a km at that speed.

[Allyc85]

Agreed, I think Mikkelsen should have regained his composure by the point he crashed.

Some fans eh?

https://www.motorsport.com/wrc/news/police-identif...

[chunder27]

Gormless idiots, if you were even 5 feet from there in the UK you would get a bking! Or you wouldn't even have been allowed in the forest in the first place

[ArnageWRC]

Have to say, the '3 way Title fight' simply hasn't materialised. A combination of Neuville's puncture and the road order has meant it's a bit of an anti climax. Could do with some late drama to shake things up.......

[l354uge]

ArnageWRC said:

Have to say, the '3 way Title fight' simply hasn't materialised. A combination of Neuville's puncture and the road order has meant it's a bit of an anti climax. Could do with some late drama to shake things up.......

It would be much more interesting if it wasn't ogier involved, he's too damn good.
Neuville is out. Need a big turn up to stop ogier now.