Wrc Rally Argentina 2017

[GravelBen]

For some reason Paddon has nowhere near the amount of people excusing his mistakes and when he crashes neither him nor his fans start blaming the car first.

He team mate is winning rallys, and his pace is gone south. I wouldnt be complaining about the car either.

Breaking down his season so far (for the record)...

Monte - Crash. Would have continued if not for spectator fatality.
Sweden - 7th, power steering failure. Best stage placings 2nd & 3rd but did take a while to get his head back into it after Monte.
Mexico - 5th, engine (and other) problems. Was 3rd before engine problems.
Corsica - 6th (still not top pace on tarmac, but probably closer than last year).
Argentina - 6th. Weird slow-motion roll in the middle of the road lost 2.5 minutes on friday, broken ARB saturday, power steering failure sunday. Won a couple of stages.

Guess you can blame the car for a fair bit of it then if you want to and its not as bad as some suggest, hopefully his luck improves for the rest of the season though. I think we'll see more of the expected speed and results again before too long.

[N.O.T]

the problem with Paddon Meeke and all the other underperforming drivers is that there is a proven reliable fast ex-manufacturer driver without a car and a swap seems to be a no-brainer.

[sollitt]

Is this the one who tipped the car over in his 'guest' test drive?

[Franky]

Everyone keeps talking about Mikkelsen like he is a golden boy or sth. He has been behind the wheel of a non-Polo only once and of the three ex-VW crews only Latvala with a lot of testing (remember the milage he did before the end of the year in the Yaris) has managed to be constantly fast or as fast as the car can go. Ogier is still struggling and that's after inseason tests and five rallies. In reality Mikkelsen might be slower than Breen at the moment, unless going pedal to the metal.

[AnttiL]

Everyone keeps talking about Mikkelsen like he is a golden boy or sth. He has been behind the wheel of a non-Polo only once and of the three ex-VW crews only Latvala with a lot of testing (remember the milage he did before the end of the year in the Yaris) has managed to be constantly fast or as fast as the car can go. Ogier is still struggling and that's after inseason tests and five rallies. In reality Mikkelsen might be slower than Breen at the moment, unless going pedal to the metal.

Mikkelsen even said by himself that if he could get a Polo, he'd be fast out of the box, but on other cars he'd need to test a lot.

[N.O.T]

Is this the one who tipped the car over in his 'guest' test drive?

Yes.

[mknight]

OK Columbo

So you saying its not speed related? So Meeke wasnt going to fast. Thats that sorted.

Why did both C3's break the gearbox at the same place on the SS3, and others didnt. The chassis is too low, and the dampers are crashing straight through.

On SS2 Meeke and Neuville jumped very much the same... cause they had same speed yes. (small difference is due to braking, ref. picture) Which clearly was a bit too fast since the jump was close to crashing, which is why the drivers (who made it that far) went slower in second round. So yes he was going too fast, just as Neuville and quite many others. (Bertelli had huge moment there)

Breen broke gearbox in SS4, Meeke's gearbox was perfectly fine even after the roll. Again Neuville and a few others jumped very much the same with small difference due to line/braking etc. Neuville was extremely lucky not to roll just as Meeke did there. Check WRC+ (it's free now anyway).

[Rally Power]

Breen broke gearbox in SS4, Meeke's gearbox was perfectly fine even after the roll. Again Neuville and a few others jumped very much the same with small difference due to line/braking etc.

Hopefully there's no fundamental issue on the C3 and they've just missed to successfully adapt it to Argentina terrain, like they did previously in MC and Sweden.

Btw, this amateur video shows other views of the jump and other nice spots:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnx3M-8KdMM

[Norm75]

On SS2 Meeke and Neuville jumped very much the same...

So you keep saying. However, different cars. Different aero, different suspension settings, different ride height etc = different handling characteristics. Like comparing chalk and cheese. Or a pair of identical twins and expecting them to 'perform' exactly the same.

I think Citroens biggest mistake re Meeke, is when Matton said at the beginning of the season (and again last weekend) that their aim this year is to win rallies and not focus on championships until next year.
This basically has given Kris the green light to go flat out everywhere, everywhen.
While they have won a rally, and no doubt will win again, it also means Kris will throw it at the scenery a few times this year.
I don't know why a more measured approach was adopted for this year. They are the only manufacturer that took a year out to develop the car for this year (I am not including Toyota as they didn't have a yard stick to measure against with an older car) so should really have had one eye on a title this year.
If that is the aim next year then we might see a more measured performance from Meeke, rather than the win it or bin it mentality we are seeing so far this year.

[Norm75]

You don't follow the discussion, I'm not going to continue it. I was talking about the start order on Friday.

That does come across as a little arrogant. Are you suggesting the starting order made little difference on the Friday, or that Meeke and the C3 were underperforming. Either way the two front runners most of Friday had favourable starting positions.