Photo Credit: Citroen Racing Kris Meeke expertly took victory on round 5 of the 2016 World Rally Championship, the Vodafone Rally de Portugal last weekend. He beat the VW's of Andreas Mikkelsen and Sebastien Ogier to take his second career victory in the hills around the historic city of Porto. However, after the Briton's success came from him benefiting from a lowly starting position for both Friday and Saturday's competitive kilometres, the road positioning debate has resurfaced, with defending champions Volkswagen claiming wildcard victories like Meeke's are "devaluing" the WRC. Triple drivers champion Sebastien Ogier has long been against the rules as they often see him disadvantaged as he is left with road cleaning duties, but how valid are the complaints? Photo Credit: Volkswagen Motorsport First off, I personally believe Jost Capito's claims that the likes of Meeke's and Sebastien Loeb's rally wins are devaluing the WRC are nonsense; as Yves Matton reasonably pointed out that neither Loeb in 2013 or Meeke this year are taking any valuable points for the championship, meaning they are not really affecting its outcome. However, the road order is something that I think may need to be looked at, as I'm not even convinced it is actually achieving its objective of spicing up the action. The current system lines the drivers up in championship order for days 1 and 2, with day 3's running order reversing the current rally order, so the rally leader starts later and in theory obtains better grip and posts quicker stage times. It is a system that deeply hinders and irks Ogier, who often finds himself disadvantaged for 2 days as he is often the championship leader. And from his position you can see why it is annoying. He is almost being punished for his previous successes and sublime consistency at the limit. However, Andreas Mikkelsen and Hayden Paddon have proved over the last two rallies that the imperious world champion can be beaten in a fair fight when both men are facing similar conditions. Paddon got the better of Ogier to win Rally Argentina whilst Mikkelsen beat his team mate to take second in Portugal. However, this was only over the course of one day and day 3 is usually the shortest. So what is the solution? That's where things get tricky. It seems clear that the rules are likely to be tweaked for 2017 but what is the most fair solution? Everyone is going to have different viewpoints and opinions on the matter, but I think there are two ways the issue can be somewhat resolved with minimal backlash from differing parties. One solution is the qualifying stage, which we saw in the WRC in 2012 and 13. This allows the drivers to complete the shakedown test, and whoever gets the fastest time decides where he shall start on the road for the next day's action. Therefore the fastest drivers are rewarded for their competitiveness. Another theory is that for day 1 the cars run in championship order, but for days 2 and 3 the rally order will be the starting procedure. This will potentially disadvantage the championship leader on gravel rallies on day 1, but give him more of a level playing field for the rest of the event. A potential issue with this system which has been used in the past is we used to see drivers slow down at the end of stages to ensure they weren't leading the rally overnight and subsequently wouldn't clean the roads for their rivals, which isn't always nice to see. The above strategy could be tweaked though, with perhaps the top 10 being reversed for day 3 so that there shouldn't be any incentive to slow down. Those of course are just my opinions. What do you think the solution should be? Below are some thoughts from respected people in the rally world. Colin Clark: Here's a suggestion for the reignited road position debate. Seed the drivers and run in that order day 1, rally order day 2 and 3. That takes away any advantage for wildcard entries and also no benefit for those who fail to score points e.g. Latvala in Monte-Carlo and Sweden. Colin McMaster: Deep down everybody knows: Day 1 championship position, Day 2 rally position, Day 3 top 15 reversed. It's the fairest and most TV friendly. Hayden Paddon: I'm sorry but this road order saga is like a broken record and is taking too much gloss of the sport. Rallying will never be 'fair' for everyone. But we compete in a sport where conditions are changeable. If it rained in Argentina/Portugal, this wouldn't be such a topic. For me qualifying is for the circuit (you knew the winner of the rally after quali). The roots of rallying is championship order day 1, rally classification days 2 & 3. Photo Credit: Hyundai Motorsport
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Photo Credit: Citroen Racing Round 5 of this year's World Rally Championship season saw the class of 2016 head to the hills around Porto for the Vodafone Rally de Portugal. Based in the north of the country for only the second time in recent years, Finland's Jari-Matti Latvala headed into the weekend as the defending winner.
But it was Northern Ireland's Kris Meeke that took the rally by the scruff of its neck, taking the lead early on Friday morning and not looking back. Meeke took his first win of the year after impressive runs in Monte-Carlo and Sweden earlier, making the most of his superior starting position to take WRC career win number 2. The Briton's triumph meant this is the first time in his Volkswagen career that Sebastien Ogier has gone three rallies without a win, and the first time VW have gone more than one rally without finishing on top of the podium. However, the German marque did own the remainder of the Portuguese podium, but it wasn't World Champion Ogier that finished as Meeke's closest challenger. Norwegian Andreas Mikkelsen put in an inspired performance on Saturday to charge his way into third position from seventh, throwing caution to the wind. He continued his fine form into the last few tests on Sunday, defeating his illustrious team mate by a handful of seconds. Ogier took third, an uncharacteristically low position for the French ace. Cleaning the roads didn't turn out to be too much of a disadvantage on Friday's earlier stages, but from then on in he struggled for grip in his battle with Kris Meeke, especially as Meeke started well down the order and not just a few cars behind. A slow puncture ultimately allowed Mikkelsen to beat him and become his closest challenger in the title race, although Ogier still remains in complete control having not finished off the podium all year. Dani Sordo put in another strong performance in Portugal with fourth place, in what is becoming one of the Spaniard's most impressive seasons in the WRC. He sat third after Friday's action, but ultimately couldn't hold off the fast charging Mikkelsen on Saturday and settled for a strong haul of points. Fifth position was a career best for M-Sport driver Eric Camilli, who backed up his points scoring finish in Argentina with a mature and impressive run in South West Europe. He did benefit from other's misfortune, but you have to be there to take the position and he set some very impressive and quick times on Saturday. He is starting to show some of the potential Malcolm Wilson clearly saw in him. Jari-Matti Latvala had another disappointing rally, as his luckless season continues. He was off the pace to begin with, but was finding his flow, only for a rut in the road to break his power steering and leave him playing catch-up for the rest of the event. All guns blazing for the Finn in Sardinia. Ostberg too continued to struggle in Portugal. Mads was off the pace in Argentina, and in Portugal he found himself with front wheel drive only in his Fiesta on Saturday afternoon, meaning seventh was all he could manage. That same hole that caught Latvala out was to be the downfall for Argentina winner Hayden Paddon and Estonian Ott Tanak. Paddon arrived first, hitting the compression and bouncing off into the undergrowth. But worse was to follow after the rear exhaust ignited the scenery, resulting in a rather burnt out Hyundai i20. Tanak made the same mistake, but his mission after crashing was to frantically save his Fiesta from burning like Paddon's i20, which he managed to do. Thierry Neuville had another rally to forget too. He sat in fifth after Friday and into Saturday, but an miscalculation led to him running out of fuel, rather embarrassingly for him and the Hyundai team. The next round of the WRC is on the Italian island of Sardinia from 10-12 June. It's not one to miss, as Latvala and Ogier amongst others will be desperate for a victory. Photo Credit: Volkswagen Motorsport The World Rally Championship returns next weekend for round 5 of the series, the 2016 Vodafone Rally de Portugal. Based around the country's capital city of Porto, Portugal is one of the most popular events with spectators and drivers alike. One of the favourites for victory, as he always is, is triple World Champion Sebastien Ogier and his Volkswagen Polo R. The Frenchman once again has the arduous task of cleaning the loose gravel for those behind him, but has an impeccable record on this European thriller, having won the event 4 times from 5 attempts in top line machinery. If he wins this year he will draw level with Markku Alen with 5 Portuguese victories. However it was last year when he was beaten to the win, with his road sweeping duties playing a significant part. That's not to take anything away from Finn Jari-Matti Latvala, who drove a superb rally 12 months ago. He is another favourite to do the double in 2016, after his crash in Argentina while leading keeps him down in 6th in the championship and subsequently further down the road order. Andreas Mikkelsen will start days 1 and 2 fourth on the road, so could be an outside bet to take his first ever gravel win in the World Rally Championship. The Norwegian is aiming to take 2nd in the championship come the close of play. Photo Credit: Hyundai Motorsport / Citroen Racing However taking the battle to the VW's will be 4 Hyundai i20s and 2 Citroen DS3's, plus a whole host of M-Sport Ford Fiesta RS's, with the entry list for this event containing 19 World Rally cars.
Scoring points for the main Hyundai squad will be Dani Sordo and Hayden Paddon, who is on the back of a maiden WRC win. It will be interesting to see how Paddon fares starting just behind Ogier in the running order, while Sordo will be looking to impress a load of his home fans who have come across the border to support him and continue his purple patch of form this season. In the second string team, test and development driver Kevin Abbring has been handed his first outing of 2016 at the wheel of a 2015 spec i20 WRC. He will be joined by Belgian Thierry Neuville, who will be looking to get his season back on track after enduring disappointing rallies in America. The Citroen's are making a welcome return as the WRC heads back to Europe, with Stephane Lefebvre joining lead driver Kris Meeke, who was impressive on his previous runs this season. Khalid Al-Qassimi will also be out in a DS3. The Ford attack is likely to be led by Mads Ostberg, who won this event back in 2012 where conditions were truly dreadful. Across the service park in Fiesta #6, Eric Camilli will be looking to improve on his 8th place from Argentina, while other Fiesta drivers such as Lorenzo Bertelli and Martin Prokop will be out to impress. In 2015 Volkswagen Motorsport took a maximum 122 points, taking a clean sweep of the finishing podium and the top 3 times on the Power Stage. Can they do it again? You'll find out next weekend! |
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January 2018
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