What was H.O.T and what was N.O.T in 2011

[N.O.T]

another year is in the books...so what did you enjoy and what you disliked about this year in the WRC and rallying in General.

H.O.T

1. The new cars did not dissapoint me although i had big doubts.
2. Loebs Legendary Record
3. Ogiers performance
4. Tanak
5. the Power stage format/live coverage
6. Paddon
7. Latvalas pace and attitude towards the sport
8. Loebs 2 year contract
9. the VW announcement
10. The suprising pace of the mini on tarmac
11. Ogiers and Latvalas fight in Jordan


N.O.T

1. Hirvonens performance
2. Latvalas inconsistency
3. The citroen/loeb/Ogier soap opera
4. Solbergs lack of pace towards the end of the season
5. Raikonen
6. Wilsons retarded tactics in the last 4 events slowing down the fastest driver
7. the 5 year disgrace patience
8. M-Sport management
9. the WRC academy survival championship
10. The new cars lack of torque


Overal i would say it was a good season with some good moments and great fights...the new cars brought new excitement and interest....on the scale of 1 to 10 i would give the championship a 7.84623...

[pettersolberg29]

Top marks for thread title!

I think one of the best things to come out of this year was the realisation that there is a good number of extremely talented youngsters who have incredible potential. Abbring, Mikkelsen, Neuville and Tanak have all shown signs of excellent ability and I wouldn't be surprised to see at least 3 of those to retire with at least one WRC title. I think the fact that the WRC now has 4/5 top, top class drivers who can challenge on every event has made this year really exciting. Yes Loeb has been the best, but JML and Ogier have more than matched him on occasion, and Petter has shown excellent pace on and off. Mikko, despite a terrible year, was also near to winning the title so overall a good battle in that top 5. Obviously the Mini and VW news has also been great for the sport, and all that's needed now is confirmation of Ford for 2012 and beyond.

Negatives? The fact that Mikko and Kopecky almost won the WRC and IRC title respectively despite not being the fastest driver - maybe the points sytem needs looking at again? Also the consistent use of blatant team tactics. Fair enough if JML and Mikko were within 10s, swap them round. But for JML to drop 30, 40, 50s just to give Mikko a few points was disappointing to see. Finally seeing VW testing drivers was good, but I feel their choices were baffling at times. Mikkelsen and Hanninen should have got many chances, while Lindroos, Riedeman etc were wastes of a seat.

Overall I'd give the year a 7.84624

[Plan9]

Mini will be hot, as will VW. I am so sick of Citroen and Ford.

[tfp]

What was hot? Ogier finally ending loebs ridiculous reign in germany. What was not? Rally sweden, that was not hot, it actually looked rather cold if you ask me....

[AndyRAC]

What was hot? Ogier finally ending loebs ridiculous reign in germany. What was not? Rally sweden, that was not hot, it actually looked rather cold if you ask me....

A puncture ended his reign.....

[ShiftingGears]

Sweden was excellent. I suspect Ford gave less indirect support to Ostberg as the season went on, because that podium was amazing. The new cars have been quite good. Enjoyed the arrival of Mini also.

[focus206]

Great title

H.O.T

- the new cars, I thought they were going to be slower
- Power stages and Rally Alsace live coverage (and Monte coverage if we talk about IRC also)
- the Fiesta's pace, quite near the DS3, but still...
- Mini BMW
- Latvala's pace
- Ogier's pace
- Hanninen
- new young guns: Ostberg, Tanak, Paddon, Breen, Neuville, Mikkelsen and possibly Kaur, Abbring and Weijs Jr
- Kuipers: quite fast for a gentleman driver, isn't it?

N.O.T

- the Fiesta reliability, at least in the first half of the season
- Hirvonen's pace
- Latvala's inconsistency
- Ogier's inconsistency (but I'll excuse him)
- Meeke, I expected him to be nearer to Sordo, but maybe I was expecting too much
- Novikov, except the last 2 rallies, was slow and did a lot of crashes
- Oliveira, the slowest rally driver I ever seen so far
- Wilks

[tfp]

A puncture ended his reign.....

Certainly did, its a long way from the top:-)

Thanks to the ugsquirrel for reminding me about ostberg, he was a hot topic this year!

[ridder]

Good:
- new wrc cars
- power stage
- Mikkelsen, Neuville, Tanak
- VW

Bad:

- road cleaning and related tactics (even worse was Ogier denying them)

- still quite bad coverage for 2011 (only France live, onboards at other vids on WRC page first in the evening etc), powerstages sometimes had issues as well. Could add maps with splits+gps tracking on the web pages (dakar does that)

- how fast the gap between factory and client cars widened (i.e. Solbergs, Østbergs and even PGs pace in the start of the season vs later on)

- pace of the new Mini (don't remember any car in last 10 years which wasn't top 3 fast out of the box and started to win later)

[rp]

Good:
- pace of the new Mini (don't remember any car in last 10 years which wasn't top 3 fast out of the box and started to win later)

How about the Suzuki SX4 WRC and the latest World Rally Cars of Subaru, Mitsubishi, Peugeot, Skoda and Hyundai...