Citroen WRT

[mknight]

Of all the gravel rallys this is the least, if any, advantage for road position. he was substantially faster than other driver around him. anyways, we will see.

He was 0.7s ahead of Tanak (who had same road position), before Tanak crashed. Fact is all of Meeke's rally wins have been on gravel rallies where he started at least 5 positions behind, so quite hard to judge his real gravel speed vs others. On rally GB last year in wet conditions he wasn't exactly beating everyone.
But hey this year he has road position advantage again.

My point is Citroen need to say that in the pre event presser. no?

What they say in press release is totally up to them, don't think it helped Meeke in any way when they said before Argentina that they go for rally wins.

right, so Poland was supposed to be his best.

The fact that Poland is historically Mikkelsen's best rally does not mean he will perform best on it every single time.

This year he was a little faster than Lefevbre if you remove all the timeloss from 4!!! off-road excursions. That means 4th or 5th place speed-wise. He also scored Citroen's best powerstage result of the year (discarding Lefevbre in Monte on dry tarmac, where it was snowing for everyone else). Given Citroen's huge issues on Friday and road positions on Saturday it was ok result, not good, not terribly bad either.

[OldF]

Very interesting also. Somehow I doubt the center diff on WRC cars are viscous couplings though. They intuitively seem like a big wear point (but I could be wrong).

All the active WRC teams (Subaru, Ford, Toyota, Mitsubishi) in 1995 had from New Zealand and onwards active centre differentials. In an interview made by Martin Holmes, the chief engineer of Mitsubishi Roland Lloyd said that the lock itself can be either viscous or a disk pack or a combination of them. Different activation solution can also be used but the hydraulic is most convenient because of its size.

I also doubt that viscous locking systems aren’t used anymore.

[Simmi]

Lefebvre gets an additional R5 outing at the Rally Madeira Vinho.

https://twitter.com/CitroenRacing/st...63227714957312

I assume Fontes is still injured after that Rallye Portugal crash?

[Andre Oliveira]

Yes, Fontes still in recovering. He ask Lefebvre to replace him as marketing tool (Fontes’ team is official supplier of Citroën Racing in Portugal and Spain) and to help win portuguese teams cup.

[Andre Oliveira]

Good to Stéphane. 3 months between Poland and Spain.

[wrc2017]

He was 0.7s ahead of Tanak (who had same road position), before Tanak crashed. Fact is all of Meeke's rally wins have been on gravel rallies where he started at least 5 positions behind, so quite hard to judge his real gravel speed vs others.

Isn't Tanak supposed to be the new Vatanen.. the fastest man? Meeke's fastest time on Ouninpohja by 14s was all road position. Your questioning his speed now. OK, got it..

On rally GB last year in wet conditions he wasn't exactly beating everyone.

You obviously don't know to much about Rally GB. When the wet slate surface turns polished. you cant get mechanical grip, on top of that, we all know what happens after Poland when the car has no grip.

What they say in press release is totally up to them,

im suggesting what they should say.

The fact that Poland is historically Mikkelsen's best rally does not mean he will perform best on it every single time.

If he cant get a result on his best rally, explains the decision not to go to Finland, i guess.

This year he was a little faster than Lefevbre if you remove all the timeloss from 4!!! off-road excursions. That means 4th or 5th place speed-wise. He also scored Citroen's best powerstage result of the year (discarding Lefevbre in Monte on dry tarmac, where it was snowing for everyone else).

Are you taking the mick now? Stop trying to polish a turd. It was a just short of disaster. Any of those offs could have resulting him in flipping onto his roof and bending the cage. And his car had all the upgrades? Gone is any chance of Citroen attracting another top line driver. So Lefevbre was the target, here is me thinking, it was at least a podium.

[mknight]

Isn't Tanak supposed to be the new Vatanen.. the fastest man? Meeke's fastest time on Ouninpohja by 14s was all road position. Your questioning his speed now. OK, got it..

You obviously don't know to much about Rally GB. When the wet slate surface turns polished. you cant get mechanical grip, on top of that, we all know what happens after Poland when the car has no grip.

I'll repeat myself again. Meeke has not won a rally where he didn't have clear road position advantage, that's just how it is. It is entirely funny when numerous people call him fastest man in WRC based on these gravel rallies and the few stages between crashes here and there. Also it's interesting when you bring out how slippery wet gravel gets for late starters when in rally Poland all 3 Citroen drivers had huge issues on Friday because of that. You even point that out.... and right in next chapter you go on to criticize how the drivers in Poland did. So did they do epic in spite of bad car or fail miserably? Meeke's performance in GB last year was in DS3 so don't get what connection it has with C3 issues in wet.

If he cant get a result on his best rally, explains the decision not to go to Finland, i guess.


Are you taking the mick now? Stop trying to polish a turd. It was a just short of disaster. Any of those offs could have resulting him in flipping onto his roof and bending the cage. And his car had all the upgrades? Gone is any chance of Citroen attracting another top line driver. So Lefevbre was the target, here is me thinking, it was at least a podium.

1. off course, that was the point, when Finland is not one of his best rallies and he didn't do all that good in Poland, why go to Finland. Wrote that 3 posts ago in plain text.

2. 3 of the 4 offs were "safe" much in the same way as those by Tanak(field on 2nd day), Ogier (field on 3rd day).. and much safer than Neuville's sideways jump that resulted in the puncture. Also on Sunday he could have tried to make the turn like Tanak and Sunninen and hope for the best, instead he chose to go straight along the road for no risk. The first one could have ended in same retirement like Lappi had yes.
That said today drivers watch every stage on vid. numerous times. With only a few stages re-run each day they know just about every corner. So it's totally not coincidence where some offs happen. Mikkelsen said it himself how he was reviewing that one stage where he went off numerous times before. Same for Ogier on the field in Monte. They know it's safer to push so they push a bit extra.

Gone is any chance of Citroen attracting another top line driver

Yes that's 100% true, after Sardinia there might have been doubts, after Poland it's very unlikely others are interested until Citroen show stable good results in at least 2 rallies in a row. (again explains why Mikkelsen probably wasn't interested in Finland)

I didn't write anywhere that Lefevbre was the target. I wrote how Mikkelsen did and that it was not good, but not terribly bad either (and certainly massive improvement over Sardinia). Seems like you are seeing things that just aren't written.
On the other hand there are some facts that are quite funny:
1. First time Citroen had 2 cars in top 10 (in 8th rally of the season!!!)
2. Best Citroen PowerStage result so far comes from a replacement driver in his 2nd rally in the car, on wet, with setup made during the rally. (yes, not like every driver was competing it, but that's how it is on most powerstages).

One or multiple parts of the Citroen package (team, car, drivers) have issues. You seem to think it's only the cars/engineer's fault, I don't think the reality is that simple.
Still a bit of a shame as it would be nice to have 4 equal teams. On the other hand on a bit selfish note, it's better than Citroen dominating VW-style.

[itix]

Regardless of the debate of Meeke vs Citroen and who is at fault, the fact is that Meeke is no longer championship winning material (he probably never was, I and some others just had gold colored spectacles on). If this was Ogier, he'd do pretty much what he does now in Ford. Bag what points he can and win where he can. Meeke tries waaaay too hard and end up crashing every single event so no matter how much of a Meeke fan you are, you should be able to realise that he would never become champion. Ogier however might likely have had a chance at a championship title in a Citroen (but probably wouldn't have got it in the end).

This goes (again) to show how important an aspect the driver is in our championship.

[wrc2017]

I'll repeat myself again. Meeke has not won a rally where he didn't have clear road position advantage, that's just how it is. It is entirely funny when numerous people call him fastest man in WRC based on these gravel rallies and the few stages between crashes here and there. Also it's interesting when you bring out how slippery wet gravel gets for late starters when in rally Poland all 3 Citroen drivers had huge issues on Friday because of that. You even point that out.... and right in next chapter you go on to criticize how the drivers in Poland did. So did they do epic in spite of bad car or fail miserably? Meeke's performance in GB last year was in DS3 so don't get what connection it has with C3 issues in wet.

Yes, I am criticizing both. Its entirely the same issue with DS3, both dampers and traction. The DS3 was never a match, for example the VW, and he went very close to winning in Monte, and Sweden in 2016 against Ogier, both to have car failure. Look, you dont like him, and will always seem to find fact that suit your argument. But the fast is.. he is one of 3/4 fastest in the WRC.

1. off course, that was the point, when Finland is not one of his best rallies and he didn't do all that good in Poland, why go to Finland. Wrote that 3 posts ago in plain text.

not a great all rounder then.

2. 3 of the 4 offs were "safe" much in the same way as those by Tanak(field on 2nd day), Ogier (field on 3rd day).. and much safer than Neuville's sideways jump that resulted in the puncture. Also on Sunday he could have tried to make the turn like Tanak and Sunninen and hope for the best, instead he chose to go straight along the road for no risk. The first one could have ended in same retirement like Lappi had yes.
That said today drivers watch every stage on vid. numerous times. With only a few stages re-run each day they know just about every corner. So it's totally not coincidence where some offs happen. Mikkelsen said it himself how he was reviewing that one stage where he went off numerous times before. Same for Ogier on the field in Monte. They know it's safer to push so they push a bit extra.

Oh, so now one of Mikkelsen skill is the picking the right place to go off on. brilliant.

Gone is any chance of Citroen attracting another top line driver

Yes that's 100% true, after Sardinia there might have been doubts, after Poland it's very unlikely others are interested until Citroen show stable good results in at least 2 rallies in a row. (again explains why Mikkelsen probably wasn't interested in Finland)

I didn't write anywhere that Lefevbre was the target. I wrote how Mikkelsen did and that it was not good, but not terribly bad either (and certainly massive improvement over Sardinia). Seems like you are seeing things that just aren't written.
On the other hand there are some facts that are quite funny:
1. First time Citroen had 2 cars in top 10 (in 8th rally of the season!!!)
2. Best Citroen PowerStage result so far comes from a replacement driver in his 2nd rally in the car, on wet, with setup made during the rally. (yes, not like every driver was competing it, but that's how it is on most powerstages).

One or multiple parts of the Citroen package (team, car, drivers) have issues. You seem to think it's only the cars/engineer's fault, I don't think the reality is that simple.
Still a bit of a shame as it would be nice to have 4 equal teams. On the other hand on a bit selfish note, it's better than Citroen dominating VW-style.

Great so Citroen have no hope, cause everyone realises the car issues. So if Meeke can get a win or a few podium, his stock will immediately improve. if it hasnt already ready done so.. by not even competiting in Poland.

[racerx1979]

If anything, Meekes stock has been crashing .