Now all MINI need to do is come up with a nice livery. Something Citroen and Ford haven't been able to do for a while.

Are people really that disinterested in the WRC?
It’s Rallye De France, based on the mainland for the first time, in Strasbourg.

4 stages gone….

It probably has something to do with Loeb's dominance, the lack of maufacturers and no coverage on the main page.

What do you mean?


Yep, and there's a beautiful fight between Solberg and Ogier out there.

Loeb is winning every single stage (boring ).

And road position is clearly putting some drivers in a disadvantage (at least I hope that’s one of the main reasons for Hirvonen’s times).

Road position??? On Tarmac? LOL

The biggest issue is the simple fact that this is should be called 'Rally Citroen'.... its hard to get excited by an event where you know who will win (accidents withstanding) the brand of the car that will win and the fact that only a couple of drivers even have a sniff of a win....

The state of the WRC really is THAT bad...

Should be better next year and in 2012, with the new cars and Loeb's retirement.

The drivers are complaining about the amount of mud the first cars are putting on the road. They are cutting almost every curve and it has been raining a lot.

And let me believe that’s the reason why Hirvonen is already one minute behind. I prefer to think it’s due to that even if I’m fooling myself .

Hahahaha fair enough...

Of more interest to me is the sensible pace of Kimi Raikkonen... he seems to be approaching the event well. But by far and away the star drive of the event so far is Yvan Muller! Going very nicely in his Xsara and will definitely continue to get quicker... but good to see another 'roundy roundy' driver having a go at Rallying.

The reason why it's "Rally Citroen" as you put it is also because Ford doesn't have a good enough asphalt driver in their ranks, Latvala has made a lot of progress on asphalt, but he still needs a little more to win an asphalt rally.

Yvan Muller doing a decent job indeed, as well as Frigyes Turan, both with WRC cars that are 4 years old...

Also a very interesting guest has been spotted at Rallye d'Alsace, a certain Michal Hrabanek, boss of Skoda Motorsport - reportedly Skoda are working on a 1600cc turbo and are eyeing a WRC return in 2012, but still need the green light from the VAG board...

Muller had to retire

http://www.autohebdo.fr/rallye/wrc/breve-2...uller-abandonne

Just noticed three Norwegians are leading in the S2000 category: Henning Solberg is 13.5s in front of Andreas Mikkelsen (both are not registered for S-WRC), followed by Eyvind Brynildsen who is a further 10.5s behind...

Both guest drivers (Vigion and Maurin) have retired already.

Said all that a few pages back..with the reason why the VAG board are procrastinating...

Real shame for Muller...

As for the WRC website..they cant even get this properly sorted... The huge background image and all the flashy adverts load and often the 'content' simply will not load onto the page... Nor do they have a very simple big button that says 'Timings' or 'Active Results'..... instead you have to drill down onto the event page.... useless!

The live-timing is @€%&$# today!

And a little bit of silly season:

Sordo:
I have to take a look to see if there’re new rumours about Dani and Ford, I’ve been a little bit disconnected lately . The last thing I became is that they were very close (even that they already had an agreement)

Kimi:
Quesnel was interviewed yesterday and he said:

“I know he wants to stay in Rallying but I know Formula 1 wants him to be back, for me it would be a shame if he stops, because I’m sure next year he could be better and better and …(continues)”

Why should Kimi do what F1 wants if he wants to rally? You cannot force somebody to drive over 300 Km/h on a racing track if he doesn’t want to.

Petter Solberg:
Listening to what they have been telling the WRR today, they seem to be confident they will make it to next season, but they think they won’t have it all together till the last second. It looks he wants to keep on working as a privateer.

No works drive options for Petter anyway, Citroen and Ford are full and like I said, Prodrive is not an option because he won't be able to fight for the championship since they will only do six rounds. I guess the second Mini works drive will go to Marcus, he has had good connections to them and after all his homepage is in the process of being redesigned, I don't think this is just a coincidence...

Interesting is which are going to be the customer drivers... what will happen to the B-teams (Citroen Junior Team and Stobart), how many customer Minis are there going to be, are there going to be other independent entrants (I read somewhere Ketomaa might step up to the WRC), etc...

Also Chris Atkinson is in France helping Block with the notes, so maybe he will finally get that Monster drive (he was supposed to be there this year)

The questions of all questions though, does Ford decide to waste one of the Stobart cars on Matthew Wilson for another year, when he is getting clearly beaten by Raikkonen who is driving his 3rd asphalt rally in a World Rally Car and Turan in his 4 year old Peugeot 307...

Because he can't get a competitive seat in WRC for 2011?

Unfortunately it's not the first time and I suspect it won't be the last

After a chat with Marcus, I will be very suprised if he will take up Mini´s offer.

-J

Dunno if this is worth of attention. "John Cooper Works" is nowadays simply a name for most powerful production Minis: http://www.mini.co.uk/html/model_range/joh...works/home.html

That’s not what I understand from Quesnel’s words.

What Quesnel says is that Kimi wants to rally BUT F1 wants him back.

I understand that whoever wants him in F1 could make him not continue rallying. It’s not that he can not get a drive in rallying and has to go back to F1, it is F1 knocking on his door.

If you want to hear what Quesnel said it’s here (Quesnel words are in English, you will understand him): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipE99pRo7ps

Mads Ostberg is mad about the lack of help he got when he went off today during SS2: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/87114

It looks the police and the marshals refused to help him and didn’t allowed anybody else to go and help

You obviously had a different chat to the one I heard, where it is pretty much already signed and done that Marcus will be helping with development both on and off events with Mini next year.

That's actually not true Alfista. I have had the pleasure of driving one of the ex-24h Nurburgring cars around the streets and country lanes of Worthing and Sussex when we were considering running a Mini on the British Championship a few years back and it was I have to say.... an absolute beast on the lanes!!

So John Cooper Works actually exists as a company and John's son Mike now runs the company that brought us the original Mini's and they still produce the specialist projects and are very much involved in all major decisions with the Mini brand, especially in matters of motorsport.

Well, if you tell so I believe. But do they have any involvement in street cars called Mini John Cooper Works? I mean Merc AMGs are made on regular production lines in regular plants and AMG itself is effectively an engine plant. And BMW makes money with putting "M" on everything up to "sporting floormats" for BMW 116d (OK, I am exaggerating but not that much)
Or is it just Mini wants to promote brand "John Cooper Works" (although the car carrying the badge is Prodrive-made)? Like Ford calls its car Focus RS WRC.

Oooh! Turan has stopped. He was doing so well…

No poblem sir..a brief history for ya...

When BMW bought the Mini brand, they approached 'John Cooper Works' to create a good working partnership and obviously use of Mike's father's name into the future, where the company advised and was instrumental in the changes made to the regular Mini in order to create the Mini 'Cooper'. It was then the development of the 'Cooper works' package, that created the top performance version of the Mini for the road and it was a kit produced by John Cooper Works, which could be bolted on to any new car produced.

So yes BMW/Mini do in fact build all the cars, and John Cooper Works is effectively a consultant partner to BMW/Mini, for special build projects and advice for future models and variants. They will therefore obviously be used and involved in the development of the WRC car, due to the experience they have racing the cars in recent years in endurance races. One of the funniest comments Mike said to me about the Mini around the Nurburgring was the fact that they were practically faster than the works M3's through the corners, but the aero properties of the Mini meant it was a little.....'challenged' on the straights!

Ok, day 1 is over (for WRC cars). No news about Turan yet.

All drivers were complaining and complaining and complaining about how dirty, slippery and difficult the road was, especially the last stage.

FOC,

My post was in reply to Turini´speculation about the seconds works driver. I wouldn´t be suprised about a development deal, but as far as WDC program goes, he didn´t sound too enthuastic. In any case he said he hadn´t made up his mind about any of the available options. To summarise: When I spoke with him few weeks ago, everything was still up in the air. But I did get the feeling that doesn´t want to get back to WRC to make up numbers, a development role seemed more to his liking.

-J

Yep....and you know who would have LOVED these conditions???

Freddy Loix or Francois Duval... the conditions are typical of a Belgium rally in the wet. Lots of slippery tarmac and lots of mud as cars cut corners and drag the contents of the corner onto the road.

Yeah agreed sir... I have been informed up till now that he would be the number 3 driver for Mini, not number 2. I still believe much rests on whether Kimi is in the WRC next year. If not, I think his DS3 WRC goes to Petter, if he is...I suspect Petter will consider the Mini option on the table.

Personally I think Galli or Duval would be a great option for Mini in the no. 2 car, or even Chris Atkinson.

Both those drivers are probably still good enough for a seat in the WRC. Whatever happened to the 'specialists'? Remember them??

Anyway, this time last week, we were havng a break until 10pm and the 44km stage. It's only 5.30pm and the first day is virtually over. I really hope we get some variety next year.

In other words, they love gravel rallies

Now seriously, wasn’t Duval supposed to come to France? The money has been the problem, right?

I know next season the number of cars available will still be very low, but I trully hope the things really improve from 2012 on and all those guys (and some new ones) can put their hands regularly in a car.

I have to say... I DO like it!!

Kimi stopped. Damn!

Off in a very slow corner, again!

Com’on, it’s always exactly the same problem!!!!!!

EDIT: he’s again on the move. It looks they have managed to free the car, but they have lost over half an hour. Hope he makes it to the next time control on time and can keep on doing kilometres.

I think they should really take a look to why he always goes off in very slow corners.

Rain currently falling on the stages.

EDIT: Loeb reporting aquaplaning in SS11
Ogier and Latvala end SS11 with slightly damaged cars
P. Solberg reports going off in SS11 but can continue without losing much time.

Where’s Muller?

He was going faster than Wilson and Villagra (and not too far away from Räikkönen’s pace).

Seems like concentration issues to me. Trying to cope with the constantly varying surfaces and condititions of rally roads and at the same time listening to pacenotes appears to be a bit too much to process for him. A little lapse – and your off in a slow corner going 20 km/h...

How on earth can it be possible?
Does he think "brake is the death of speed" all the time? How much patience has his bosses got before boiling over?

Has lost 15 minutes at penultimate split

I think that’s not the reason. I agree with Porter. If you analyze Kimi’s offs, he doesn’t have any problem in fast sections, or taking the corners in fast sections. He’s not overdriving the car.

His problems come in very slow corners in slow sections, where he has to process the most notes, it looks more like he has problems to internalise notes.

If the problem is with the notes, the bosses should not boil but try to help, that’s a newbie problem not a problem of having a driver overdriving the car.



Nice to see Muller moving again.

I'm following the rally but I haven't been bothering with the rally threads much. They seem to be filled with posts about how much better it was in the old days and is in the IRC rather than about the rallies.

Latvala over 6 secs faster than Sordo and Loeb in SS12

His explanation for such a strange event: “we’re driving on gravel with tarmac tyres”

Yep but looking at his time on SS12 his car is perhaps not in good condition

It looks he’s basically driving on 3 wheels right now. Let’s see if the mechanics can fix it during service.

PS. People! The folder has turned red! WRC is now officially a hot topic.

That's because the thread got 1000 replies.

During how many years?

EDIT: Heh, in less than 7 months only

So the morning is over and Loeb has already more than 40 seconds lead (surprise, surpise).
Was he the only one that was not off track today morning?

Good fight developing between Solberg and Latvala.

About Kimi: how is it possible that (almost) everybody goes off today morning and can continue without problems and he’s the one who only takes half car off the road, driving at 20 km/h, and manages to get stuck in the mud for over half an hour?!
My mum would say he’s the perfect candidate to get a free immersion bad in holy water.

Yes he seem to go off at very slow speeds. It might have something to do that he has little experience in going at very low speeds, in F1 they're always going at a lot faster speeds. In rallying you can go off at 20 km/h.

Oops! It looks Ogier has made a mistake (or had a problem) in the last split of SS14, he has lost almost 25 seconds there.
That will put Solberg and Latvala again in position to fight for the podium.

Loeb’s last split doesn’t look too tidy, either.

Edit: Ogier had a broken front damper. No more details known yet.

Ogier stopped in SS15