Publicat in: February 16, 2009, Vizualizari: 50
"Not usually my best surface"
Sebastien Loeb scored his World rally win number 49 in Norway, only his second ever victory on a Scandinavian winter rally, a surface which he admitted was, "not usually my best surface". Basically it was business as usual, but the most dramatic success on this event came with a win at its WRC debut for the Skoda Fabia Super 2000. Patrik Sandell held the lead from start to finish, the first time a Super 2000 had beaten orthodox Group N cars on a PCWRC event, and the first PCWRC win for the former JWRC champion.
Winter rallies have the tradition of equalling the cars and Rally Norway was no exception to the rule. On the first day four different types of car won special stages, a most unusual occurrence these days and particularly when two of them were long-obsolete rally cars such as the Xsara and the Fabia World Rally Cars! It proved once again that the man was more important then the wheel. "I still don't have the same confidence when I am rallying on the snow because I keep on hitting snow banks" Sebastien had said before the rally. He keeps on trying to reach new levels of perfection. This time he avoided the snowbanks.
There can be few places in the world more upset by the recent withdrawal of Subaru from the world championship series than here in Norway, because Subaru and Petter Solberg had become national rallying icons over the past eight and a half years. The organisers were thrown into a frenzy, because the commercial implications of losing Petter from the event were too serious to contemplate. The entry closing date came and went, Petter was urged to make an entry with a blank for the type of car, to give more time to firm up options, not only for this critical event but for the rest of the year. Eventually the decision was made. He was to drive a Citroen Xsara World Rally car, 2001 vintage, still fitted with the active transmission systems which the top manufacturer teams are now banned from using. It was a long shot which could cause a sensation or a catastrophe. As it turned out it was both a dramatic success and a frustration. Petter scored the fastest time on the opening superspecial stage, held in downtown Oslo. Then little things kept on going wrong. He took only one spare wheel listed of two and this disturbed the performance of the tyres. Then he had a sticking throttle and had clutch trouble near the end.
Jari-Matti Latvala's second stage disaster in Ireland had put BP Ford on the back foot in the championship prospects, in which the reduced size championship this year means every event carries proportionately more significance. With two accomplished Finnish drivers at Ford, matched against two Continental drivers at Citroen, with Ford having won every Scandianian winter rally for three years and Nordic drivers winning these events every time apart from Loeb's isolated win in Sweden in 2004, Ford had some reason to be hopeful. But it was not going to happen. Loeb had his own agenda. Citroen's Makes championship weakness on this event was going to be their number two driver Dani Sordo, whose points potential was dependent on whether the Stobart Ford drivers Henning Solberg and Urmo Aava could beat him.
Once again four manufacturers teams were present, the same eight drivers as in Ireland except that Chris Atkinson was not there and the top Citroen Junior Team entry was driven this time by the 18 year old Russian Evgeniy Novikov, on his first outing in a World Rally Car. These cars encountered various troubles through the event. There were brake problems and misfiring for Conrad Rautenbach whose car was withdrawn just before the finish, then there was gearshifting problems for Novikov. Sebastien Ogier drove a non-championship entry in the Citroen Junior team and lost a lot of time with an alternator problem. The surprise star turn of the event however turned out to be Per-Gunnar Andersson with a three year old Skoda Fabia World Rally Car. Andersson was lent this car by a Norwegian friend, who had previously offered him the car for the first national Norwegian event, which Andersson won outright. After having turbo failure in Shakedown, then losing time with a sticking handbrake, "PG" got up to full speed, and incredibly on the second loop of stages of Day 1 he had already scored two fastest stage times. By the end of the day he was sixth overall. On Day 2 he climbed past Henning Solberg up to fifth, but then the transmission snapped and his event was over
The most dramatic feature of the event was the decision that all the four wheel drive cars must run with wheels of the same dimensions as those used on gravel events. This meant the end of the traditional winter rally skinny wheels and tyres, which help the studs penetrate deeply through snow to the surfaces of the stages. What then became interesting was which type of car worked best with the control tyres. And it seemed this was the C4 WRC. Mikko Hirvonen was frequently speaking about his Focus "moving around a bit".
It is unusual for a world championship debut to be as dramatic as that of the domination of the Skoda Fabia Super 2000 in the hands, of Patrik Sandell. The PCWRC opposition was strong, in terms of Mitsubishis driven by Martin Prokop, Armindo Araujo and Eyvind Brynildsen against the Subarus of Toshi Arai, Patrik Flodin and Guest driver Andreas Mikkelsen but Sandell walked away from them all. First casualty was Arai whose engine failed - having already had an engine failure on Shakedown. At the end of Day 1 Sandell was declared to be two minutes ahead of Araujo but there was a debate about an incident in which Flodin went off the road, and Brynildsen went in to a snowbank avoiding spectators assisting Flodin. Overnight Brynildsen's lost time was given back, so the Norwegian was little over a minute behind the Swede. Bernardo Sousa's Fiat Grande Punto S2000 was also missing, also with engine failure. On Day 2, Sandell pulled further ahead and Mikkelsen sought to recover the ground lost earlier. Martin Prokop kept third despite central differential problems. Mikkelsen had high hopes of finishing in the top three, but had a flat battery in parc ferme and later retired with two flat tyres. Flodin finally made the finish ramp, but only just, having lost all his fluids after going off the road during the final stage.
3mmm
"Not usually my best surface"
Sebastien Loeb scored his World rally win number 49 in Norway, only his second ever victory on a Scandinavian winter rally, a surface which he admitted was, "not usually my best surface". Basically it was business as usual, but the most dramatic success on this event came with a win at its WRC debut for the Skoda Fabia Super 2000. Patrik Sandell held the lead from start to finish, the first time a Super 2000 had beaten orthodox Group N cars on a PCWRC event, and the first PCWRC win for the former JWRC champion. Winter rallies have the tradition of equalling the cars and Rally Norway was no exception to the rule. On the first day four different types of car won special stages, a most unusual occurrence these days and particularly when two of them were long-obsolete rally cars such as the Xsara and the Fabia World Rally Cars! It proved once again that the man was more important then the wheel. "I still don't have the same confidence when I am rallying on the snow because I keep on hitting snow banks" Sebastien had said before the rally. He keeps on trying to reach new levels of perfection. This time he avoided the snowbanks.
There can be few places in the world more upset by the recent withdrawal of Subaru from the world championship series than here in Norway, because Subaru and Petter Solberg had become national rallying icons over the past eight and a half years. The organisers were thrown into a frenzy, because the commercial implications of losing Petter from the event were too serious to contemplate. The entry closing date came and went, Petter was urged to make an entry with a blank for the type of car, to give more time to firm up options, not only for this critical event but for the rest of the year. Eventually the decision was made. He was to drive a Citroen Xsara World Rally car, 2001 vintage, still fitted with the active transmission systems which the top manufacturer teams are now banned from using. It was a long shot which could cause a sensation or a catastrophe. As it turned out it was both a dramatic success and a frustration. Petter scored the fastest time on the opening superspecial stage, held in downtown Oslo. Then little things kept on going wrong. He took only one spare wheel listed of two and this disturbed the performance of the tyres. Then he had a sticking throttle and had clutch trouble near the end.
Jari-Matti Latvala's second stage disaster in Ireland had put BP Ford on the back foot in the championship prospects, in which the reduced size championship this year means every event carries proportionately more significance. With two accomplished Finnish drivers at Ford, matched against two Continental drivers at Citroen, with Ford having won every Scandianian winter rally for three years and Nordic drivers winning these events every time apart from Loeb's isolated win in Sweden in 2004, Ford had some reason to be hopeful. But it was not going to happen. Loeb had his own agenda. Citroen's Makes championship weakness on this event was going to be their number two driver Dani Sordo, whose points potential was dependent on whether the Stobart Ford drivers Henning Solberg and Urmo Aava could beat him.
Once again four manufacturers teams were present, the same eight drivers as in Ireland except that Chris Atkinson was not there and the top Citroen Junior Team entry was driven this time by the 18 year old Russian Evgeniy Novikov, on his first outing in a World Rally Car. These cars encountered various troubles through the event. There were brake problems and misfiring for Conrad Rautenbach whose car was withdrawn just before the finish, then there was gearshifting problems for Novikov. Sebastien Ogier drove a non-championship entry in the Citroen Junior team and lost a lot of time with an alternator problem. The surprise star turn of the event however turned out to be Per-Gunnar Andersson with a three year old Skoda Fabia World Rally Car. Andersson was lent this car by a Norwegian friend, who had previously offered him the car for the first national Norwegian event, which Andersson won outright. After having turbo failure in Shakedown, then losing time with a sticking handbrake, "PG" got up to full speed, and incredibly on the second loop of stages of Day 1 he had already scored two fastest stage times. By the end of the day he was sixth overall. On Day 2 he climbed past Henning Solberg up to fifth, but then the transmission snapped and his event was over
The most dramatic feature of the event was the decision that all the four wheel drive cars must run with wheels of the same dimensions as those used on gravel events. This meant the end of the traditional winter rally skinny wheels and tyres, which help the studs penetrate deeply through snow to the surfaces of the stages. What then became interesting was which type of car worked best with the control tyres. And it seemed this was the C4 WRC. Mikko Hirvonen was frequently speaking about his Focus "moving around a bit".
It is unusual for a world championship debut to be as dramatic as that of the domination of the Skoda Fabia Super 2000 in the hands, of Patrik Sandell. The PCWRC opposition was strong, in terms of Mitsubishis driven by Martin Prokop, Armindo Araujo and Eyvind Brynildsen against the Subarus of Toshi Arai, Patrik Flodin and Guest driver Andreas Mikkelsen but Sandell walked away from them all. First casualty was Arai whose engine failed - having already had an engine failure on Shakedown. At the end of Day 1 Sandell was declared to be two minutes ahead of Araujo but there was a debate about an incident in which Flodin went off the road, and Brynildsen went in to a snowbank avoiding spectators assisting Flodin. Overnight Brynildsen's lost time was given back, so the Norwegian was little over a minute behind the Swede. Bernardo Sousa's Fiat Grande Punto S2000 was also missing, also with engine failure. On Day 2, Sandell pulled further ahead and Mikkelsen sought to recover the ground lost earlier. Martin Prokop kept third despite central differential problems. Mikkelsen had high hopes of finishing in the top three, but had a flat battery in parc ferme and later retired with two flat tyres. Flodin finally made the finish ramp, but only just, having lost all his fluids after going off the road during the final stage.
3mmm
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