2008 Rally of Turkey - official thread

[duff]

Although it's probably more likely Malcolm would ask Latvala to stay on position tonight.

Loeb is too close to JML. They will have to fight it out on the final day, at least over the first few stages.

[duff]

The tactics just sum up the current state of the WRC - A farce. While nobody is doing anything wrong - it's extremely artificial. I'm all for an exciting Championship - but not like this.
Why not let the Championship leader choose his position on the road.
Run the PWRC/JWRC first on the road.
Don't have the hot gravel Rallies one after the other - why can't they run a Tarmac Rally in the summer? Run Turkey or Sardinia in October....

Personally speaking - it would be like making Ferrari, McLaren and BMW start from the Pit lane every GP - just to even competition. Gimmicks are fine for sports entertainment, i;e WWE Wrestling - but for a proper sport World Championship, it just isn't on.

Agreed.

[ST205GT4]

Not sure why people are crying about the road position games. It's nothing new. It happened all the time back in the 90s. Hell Sainz was excluded in Australia for trying to slow down at the wrong point in an attempt to secure a better road position.

[grugsticles]

In a way I dont mind the idea of slowing down to gain a better road position.
But, I think that each team should have one 'wild card' where they can allow one driver to drop, say up to 20 seconds on a stage, but any more the time is penalised somehow. If a team tries this tactic mroe than once an event, then they face exclusion from that day (allowing them to SuperRally).

Thoughts?

[tmx]

Why not let the Championship leader choose his position on the road.

If I was the leader and I get to choose my position, unless its a lot of rain on gravel, I would have no reason to choose anything but be the last car.

Not sure why people are crying about the road position games. It's nothing new. It happened all the time back in the 90s. Hell Sainz was excluded in Australia for trying to slow down at the wrong point in an attempt to secure a better road position.

Exactly, I think this point has been repeated several times, it has been like this in the past.

[TG]

Sweeping is nowadays is much more difficult than in the past, because now it's forbidden to cut tyres.

Hirvonen made a brave, but not so clever, decision not to slow down yesterday.

If top guys doesn't have any technical or driver errors today, I'll be surprized if Hirvonen can be better than third. He doesn't have enough experience and confidence to drive fast as a first car on the road. (yet).

[Roy]

Lets the battle start! A nice final day we see not a lot in rally.

[Roy]

Stage summaries by Henning Solberg and Cato Menkerud:

SS17/SS19 Olympos, 31.03km
It’s strange but even though this is definitely the longest stage of the rally it doesn’t feel anywhere near 31km to drive. It feels more like 15; on the recce we both got to the end and couldn’t believe it. It’s twisty at the start, then faster in the middle - with some big drops by the side of the road - and twisty again at the end. I think a lot of drivers will be troubled by stones here. The road has been graded but we could see lots of rocks and stones lying by the side by on the recce. With a stage like this on Sunday, the leader of the rally through the morning pass might not be the one who goes on to win overall. On the second loop the conditions will be much rougher.

WRR: Hirvonen stalled on the startline!!!!!

[tmx]

Sweeping is nowadays is much more difficult than in the past, because now it's forbidden to cut tyres.

Good point. But I hope they re-open that rule later on.

Hirvonen isn't naive either. He is 34 seconds ahead of Loeb, there are only two long stages today. It would be stupid for him (or anyone in this circumstance) to lose all of it and then drive very hard to catch Loeb again, two stages are too close to risk it.

What I would like to see is Latvala to drive like crazy in this last too stages and win, but I don't think that is the team plan.

[CABAIO E'LONA]

first split for Hirvonen...1:28.0