2006 World Rally Championship Thread [r]

Gronholm continues to lead Saturday, winning all stages so far on Day 2

 

tell me about it.. flipping nascar!!! grrrr

 

Can I reiterate how pissed I am that this isn't on US television?

Allegedly, according to someone who emailed WRC on a motorcycle forum I read, they are in negotiations for US right now, and are hoping to be on-air mid March. That would be excellent - hopefully they show the already passed rallies.

 

solbergs luck from last year seems to be continuing.

 

This Xsara WRC isn't really the sexiest car but it is now definitely entering the rally car pantheon if it wasn't already the case. Let's hope for Citroën withe the future C4 that they won't suffer the same (relative) misfortunes that Peugeot had to deal with when they brought the 307 to replace the 206.

Whereas the poor dog just had to be unlucky once !

 

The Porsche 911 is back in rally ! Well, at least in the French championship (thanks to the French federation -FFSA- now allowing GT cars to compete) where Oreca (Vipers in Le Mans) is developping a kit for 911 gt3 so that they can be competitive versus super1600 rally cars. Maybe someday, there might be one during a WRC event.

http://racing.oreca.fr/index.aspx?news=180​

 

It's hard to argue against Loeb being better. He wins on all surfaces, something Gronholm never did even when he had the best car.

 

On this particular rally, I'd say both the car and the driver. Even if the Focus is potentially more performant, the Citroën is a well known machine by the technical staff of Kronos -the Citroën company being not so far- and Loeb who knows how to exploit every single inch of it. Don't forget that the main contenders cannot use electronic differentials anymore. Some of the Ford's potential might have evaporated as a result of a not so good setting, maybe, I'm speculating there.

Le Tour de Corse is an event that has almost always been won by a Frenchman like the Swedish rally and Scandinavians. Gronholm was one of the few to break the rule and Loeb also the other way round incidentally...Usually, french drivers had a profile similar to say Gilles Panizzi, ie someone from the South of France. Exactly like Swedes, Norwegians and Finns learned to drive on slippery surfaces from an early age, our Southerners began on those typical twisty tarmac moutain or coastal roads.

Having said that, Sebastien Loeb does not exactly fits in the format. The guy is a former gymnast from Alsace who started his career in Rally driving after participating to a young talent contest organised by Peugeot (I saw it at the time and even considered trying myself -the fee was really affordable (~15$)- anyway I did not, good for him LOL !). It's the same kind of contest put in place this time by Subaru France that also allowed Sarrazin to switch from track racing.

Anyway, the French rally championship has always put an emphasis on tarmac races, that's why we have so many tarmac experts ; but with fewer and fewer of these events at the world level, French drivers must learn to be competitive on the gravel once they get a seat in a WRC. Sebastien is really gifted, learns fast, is cool and composed. In addition to that, he had the opportunity of nurturing his talent at Citroën with very friendly and efficient working conditions as he was developping the Xsara WRC prior to the double chevron brand first complete participation in WRC. I remember when Guy Frequelin (Citroën sport team boss) was trying to hide the company's ambition to build a WRC, seems like yesterday...Of course, like many of his counterparts , Loeb has a very strong will to win yet his main asset is that he's also able to convert this will in a will to learn in order to attain his goals.

 

Even if Loeb benefited from his opponent woes on this rally, it's a little bit worrying for Ford and Subaru that aunt Xsara isn't so far off the pace on gravel.

First podium for galli with the Peugeot 307 and pirelli tyres. And quite a considerable amount of those in the privateers rank. looks like it isn't such a bad car nor a bad deal. The 307 was known to be performant but difficult to exploit, strange that they appear to have fixed that for the customer version.

 

i havent been following the WRC too much this year but was talking with my friend about it...

guess theyre going to NA engines next year and spec transmissions? good god why? rally is dying in this country and the FIA/WRC is making these utterly unreal rule changes? sad.

 

That may actually attract more manufacturers in the future, I guess it would be a 2L engine, it won't be too far from engines used in supertouring then. There's not a great deal of car brands that propose turbo charged engines for compact cars on the market,at least for the moment. The strange thing is that the future trend seems to be small capacity turbo charged engines.

Anyway, as of today, the paradox is that neither Peugeot nor Citroën sell a car using turbo (for gasoline at least) and they have cars in the WRC regulation whereas Renault sells at least one (Megane RS)...