Day 1 of Rally Sweden 2015 was going well for Jari-Matti Latvala, fighting tooth and nail with title rival Sebastien Ogier for the rally lead. That is up until SS9, where the drama unfurled.
Ogier was first into the stage and got it wrong on a left hander, putting his Polo R into a snow bank, losing the Frenchman 40 seconds and with it the rally lead. This gifted Latvala the provisional rally lead, but he too got it wrong in the stage and buried his VW into a snow bank as well. However, Latvala was beached and he lost a lot more time, 8 minutes to be exact, all but ending his hopes of a second consecutive Rally Sweden victory and 4th in total. Latvala said after Rallye Monte-Carlo that he thought the tactic of Richard Burns' title winning 2001 season (Richard only won 1 rally on the way to the title) was one worth following due to the rule changes for the 2015 season. As the championship leader must lead the way for 2 days of each rally, this puts the leader at a bigger disadvantage on loose surface events than to previous years where the championship leader had to be first on the road on only day 1. Subsequently Latvala realised that to win the title he doesn't necessarily need to win lots of rallies but be consistent. Maybe being 2nd in the championship would be an advantage throughout the year. And that is the position he finds himself in tonight. With Ogier 4th and only seconds adrift of 2nd placed Thierry Neuville, Latvala is almost certainly going to lose points to his championship rival. However, this means he will have a favourable road position for next month's Rally Mexico, which means he has a stronger chance of winning in South America and clawing points back. So although Jari will be gutted not to be fighting for the lead and potentially winning one of his favourite rallies, he is already looking at the bigger picture. It's a marathon, not a sprint.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
WRCArticles covering the World Rally Championship Archives
January 2018
Categories |