Some spectacular videos

Quick post before going to bed. Kimi Raikkonen’s been practising with his Citroen C4 WRC for this weeks Arctic Rally and some folks have put it up on youtube, showing some great jumps over the snow-covered surface:

From the same youtube account, here’s a mental vid of the Monte Carlo Rally from the Group A era of the 1990s and late 80s. The fanaticism of the fans and the brutality of the cars makes for a mental 10 minutes montage with nothing but pure engine sounds and fan shouting:

Awesome.

Short summary of the Monte

Friday night the Monte Carlo Rally ended, after a dominating show of superiority by Mikko Hirvonen and the brand new Ford Fiesta S2000, who led the event since the first special stage. Sebastien Ogier, however, was the star of the event. The frenchman was fighting closely with Hirvonen until he went off the road in SS 3, in a place where spectators put snow on the road, losing about 2 minutes. Nevertheless, Sebastien recovered up to the point he was starting to put pressure back on Hirvonen in the final day. Then, a mechanical issue in a connection route between stages forced him to retire.

M-Sport will be happy with Hirvonen's and the Fiesta's performance

Behind these two WRC stars doing an one-off appearance and somewhat embarassing the regular IRC crew, Skoda was the big winner, putting Juno Hanninen in 2nd (1 minute and 51 seconds behind Hirvonen), Nicolas Vouilloz in 3rd, Jan Kopecky in 5th and Guy Wilks in 6th. In between them finished Stephane Sarrazin in 4th in the best Peugeot, and it’s worth noting that from this pack, Sarrazin and Kopecky had several offs and poor tyre choices that put them that far back. The big loser of the event was last years IRC champion Kris Meeke who slode off the road in an ice patch in SS5, the brit simply making a mistake and braking too late.

Kris Meeke fell off a bridge (videocap by rallyman69 of TBK Light)

Other two drivers who crashed were Toni Gardemeister, who was far from the leaders in an outdated Punto; and the austrian Franz Wittmann, right after picking up the pace in the final day and starting to challenge for 6th. Portuguese Bruno Magalhães picked up 7th at the end thanks to this, and could’ve nicked 6th away from Guy Wilks had he not made the wrong tyre choice for the final two stages. A sensible performance none the less, despite not showing much pace, managed to pick up 2 points in a difficult rally in conditions he had never experienced. The final points scorer was the Peugeot of the french Jean-Sébastien Vigion, who I know little about.

Bruno got 7th in his Monte debut

The IRC heads off now to South America in March, first in Brazil for the Curitiba Rally and then to the Rally Argentina, a prestigious event which used to be in the WRC calendar. This makes 3 somewhat special events starting the season, with non-regulars participating, and other regulars sitting out until the european summer rallies start in June. Anyway I believe Kris Meeke, some Skodas and Bruno Magalhães will be there in South America.

A final positive word goes out to Eurosport, the coverage was spectacular and they now promise to do more of the same once the IRC comes back to Europe. I wish they’ll show some live onboards of the Encumeada and Chão da Lagoa stages when they come here to Madeira!

Final Monte Carlo Rally results:

1. Hirvonen/Lehtinen (Ford Fiesta S2000) 4:32:58,5
2. Hanninen/Markkula (Skoda Fabia S2000) +01:51,4
3. Vouilloz/Veillas (Skoda Fabia S2000) +03:19,1
4. Sarrazin/Renucci (Peugeot 207 S2000) +07:25,5
5. Kopecky/Stary (Skoda Fabia S2000) +08:48,7
6. Wilks/Pugh (Skoda Fabia S2000) +09:24,5
7. Magalhães/Magalhães (Peugeot 207 S2000) +09:45,4
8. Vigion/Prevot (Peugeot 207 S2000) +13:33,5

Get ready for the Monte!

This year’s rallying season kicks-off next Tuesday with the much anticipated Rally of Monte Carlo, a legendary event that tests the drivers with an unpredictable surface combination of asphalt, ice and snow. It will have a great lineup with no less than 20 S2000 cars, most of them ran by world class drivers, plus a spectacular TV coverage in Eurosport that will broadcast almost every special stage live. IRC are betting big again on their jewel of the calendar even if it is only the first event of a long season.

The rally’s headliner is the reigning WRC vice-champion Mikko Hirvonen, who will make a rare IRC appearance to test the brand new Ford Fiesta S2000. The car hasn’t run competitively yet and this will be an important test to check its performance, although the rumour around is that it is fast. Here is a video of Mikko preparing himself for the rally:

Mikko is a bit of an unknown variable into the mix, because apart from him the story of the event should be the Skoda vs Peugeot battle. Skoda brings 3 official entries – 2 for last year’s stars Jan Kopecky, who fought for the championship, and Juno Hanninen who was very quick on the 2009 Monte before crashing out; and 1 for the former IRC champion Nicolas Vouilloz who is their new signing. Another quick contender will be the Skoda UK car of Guy Wilks, who will be keen to continue his good form for Skoda after winning the Rally of Scotland on debut for them.

Finnish Skoda driver Juno Hanninen should fight for a podium place. This is a photo from last year

Peugeot meanwhile will put 10(!!) 207 S2000s on the road. Reigning champion Kris Meeke will be #1 on the road, and willing to show again the same surprising pace he had on last year’s Monte. There’s 2 french Pug drivers: Sebastien Ogier will again be here in an one-off IRC appearance and a major contender for victory given he was last year’s winner; former F1 driver Stephane Sarrazin will surely mix with the front-runners as well. Portuguese champion Bruno Magalhães will finally get his big international break as he’ll contest several rounds of the IRC this year with a very well-prepared car, but the Monte should be difficult for him as he’s never ran a rally on snow! The remaining other 6 207 S2000s will be ran by the lesser known Franz Wittmann, Jean-Sébastien Vigion, Luca Betti, Daniel Oliveira, Andrej Jereb and Franck Phillips.

Bruno Magalhães' Peugeot Total car will sport this stunning livery

Finally, it is worth mentioning that former WRC star Toni Gardemeister will be back in the Monte, with an Abarth Punto S2000 – there’s another main contender. Also, frenchman Julien Maurin will be Hirvonen’s team-mate for M-Sport in a 2nd Ford Fiesta. Another driver worth mentioning is Renault F1′s new signing Robert Kubica, who will make his Monte debut in a Renault Clio R3 – notice that this car can’t compete with the lead pack of S2000s, but it will still be very interesting to check how the pole will go against the other folks in his car’s class.

Toni Gardemeister on his Suzuki WRC days

Despite all these stars, some are still missing. Abarth ain’t quite with their full lineup here, as I believe they have abandoned the IRC due to bad results (although this hasn’t been confirmed officially yet?) – Giandomenico Basso’s name does not feature on the entry list. Neither does Freddy Loix and Andreas Mikkelsen who are expected to contest several rounds of the IRC this year. Malaysian manufacturer Proton is also on hold until later in the year.

Now, time to drool at this PDF with the TV coverage list – you’ve read that right, the Monte will have 13 stages live on Eurosport!!

Last week’s recap

Sorry for the lack of articles lately. I’ve been busy in work, not had much patience in my free time, and there hasn’t been much worth writing a full article about. Anyway, here’s a recap of last week’s news in the F1 world:

- The teams want to ban double diffusers from 2011 onwards. This should be good, as double diffusers weren’t intended by the Overtaking Working Group when they laid out the new aerodynamics rules for 2009, and some said it helped ruin the airflow behind the cars. However Mike Gascoyne has come out saying he doesn’t expect any more overtaking with the ban; and it brings up a cost problem as the teams will have to re-think and re-design many things in the back of the cars yet again for 2011.

- The german newspaper AMuS says there’s a new proposed points system: 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1 instead of 25-20-15-10-8-6-5-3-2-1. I like it as it has a smoother mathematical progression and because there’s a bigger difference between 1st and 2nd place, which should place more incentive on risk-taking over conservative racing. There’s also talk of points for pole position and fastest lap – of that I’m not a fan because I’ve seen it in other categories such as GP2, and all it brought was more complicated scenarios rather than improving the racing.

- Silly season still goes on, without new driver announcements. Swiss sources insist de la Rosa is certain at Sauber. French sources claim the Renault seat is between Heidfeld and Sato. Toro Rosso is yet to confirm Jaime Alguersuari, meanwhile promising italian youngster Mirko Bortolotti has been dropped from the Red Bull Junior Team, so someone has added 2+2 and got 5 by claiming Bortolotti’s moving into F1. I think it’s nonsense as I see Bortolotti as even less prepared for F1 than Alguersuari seemed last year! USF1 should announce José María López soon, and brit James Rossiter has came up out of nowhere as a possibility for the other seat – which would make for a weird and likely uncompetitive pair of drivers. There’s no news for the other remaining seat at Campos, and they seem to have bigger things to worry about right now…

- …because it appears Adrian Campos is so desperate for money he is trying to sell the team, or a part of it. Shady former A1GP boss Tony Teixeira is linked to it, and the story seems to have credibility as even Autosport have reported on it. USF1 gave some good news by announcing they will test next month at Barber Motorsport Park in Alabama, after persistent rumours that the team is not for real. Then it all surfaced again yesterday with the Gazzetta de lo Sport claiming the team had asked the FIA to start the season at Barcelona, skipping the first few races. Jonathan Noble meanwhile has rubbished these claims.

- Outside of F1, there is plenty of people competing in the Dakar in South America, although there’s not much of battles for the lead there. In cars the Volkswagens have 2 hours over the rest of the pack; in trucks the 3rd placed is already 7 hours behind the russian Kamazes; and in bikes Cyril Despres also has over an hour of a lead – after some controversy with Marc Coma being penalized with 6 hours for an irregular tyre change.  The portuguese have been doing well, Carlos Sousa 7th in cars with a severely restricted Mitsubishi, and Hélder Rodrigues 4th in the bikes. Both have been running higher in earlier stages and have dropped back.

- In rallying, the season is about to start, as the IRC has their biggest event of the year in the Monte Carlo Rally. Robert Kubica and Toni Gardemeister are the latest additions to a superb lineup. I am pretty excited about the Monte, the IRC, and interested about the rivalry with the new S2000 Cup of the WRC so I might write an article about this soon. There’s also the Arctic Rally this month, and this is of interest because Kimi Raikkonen will do his debut in the Citroen C4 WRC.