[WRC] News & Rumours (part V) 2017

[Rally Power]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report...e-stage-speeds has anyone seen this?

So, Mahonen asked Finnish organizers to change this year rally route but they didn’t care, despite knowing that new cars would be quite faster. If we remember that French organizers were forced to run Corsica only 6 months after last year and Portugal was pressured a couple of years ago to move their rally to the north, it seems FIA is not being equally tolerant to all WRC organizers…

[AnttiL]

The itinerary of Rally Finland 2017 may look the same as 2016 but apart from a few stages they're not the same at all even if the names are the same. Different roads and directions etc. Although I wonder why they dropped some slow stages and kept all the fastest ones.

[Rally Power]

So, they’ve made some changes but they didn’t comply with FIA demand to get a slower route; that’s even worse…

[AnttiL]

So, they’ve made some changes but they didn’t comply with FIA demand to get a slower route; that’s even worse…

http://yle.fi/urheilu/3-9525388?origin=rss

This article (in Finnish) states that they made changes to make the average speeds slower. It says they had a version of the route in january, but changes were applied after Rally Sweden and the high average speeds. All the stages on Saturday are now run in the opposite direction to reduce the speed. They are also considering chicanes but I'm not sure if that applies anymore with Mahonen's later statements.

However, the Power Stage is the same as last year, I think it will be very fast. But then again, there will be no further stages to cancel at that point. And Ouninpohja is always a problem by being super popular and dangerously fast.

[SubaruNorway]

http://yle.fi/urheilu/3-9525388?origin=rss

This article (in Finnish) states that they made changes to make the average speeds slower. It says they had a version of the route in january, but changes were applied after Rally Sweden and the high average speeds. All the stages on Saturday are now run in the opposite direction to reduce the speed. They are also considering chicanes but I'm not sure if that applies anymore with Mahonen's later statements.

However, the Power Stage is the same as last year, I think it will be very fast. But then again, there will be no further stages to cancel at that point. And Ouninpohja is always a problem by being super popular and dangerously fast.

That's funny, you never have as many accidents as when you run a stage in reverse, like we saw in Ouninpohja last year. Slower yes, but not safer...

[Thousandlakes]

Marcus Grönholm said in finnish rally magazine (VM) that he will drive Toyota Yaris wrc in Rally Finland. He is not real competitor. He is doing only VIP. He said that he will drive only city stage Harju and maybe power stage in sunday. Also some negotiations about driving shakedown stage. Some lucky fan of Bosse can win "codriving" next to him.

[electroliquid]

Marcus Grönholm said in finnish rally magazine (VM) that he will drive Toyota Yaris wrc in Rally Finland. He is not real competitor. He is doing only VIP. He said that he will drive only city stage Harju and maybe power stage in sunday. Also some negotiations about driving shakedown stage. Some lucky fan of Bosse can win "codriving" next to him.

Nice gesture from Toyota to promote rallying, it would be good to see similar actions more often from other teams.

[Hartusvuori]

That's funny, you never have as many accidents as when you run a stage in reverse, like we saw in Ouninpohja last year. Slower yes, but not safer...

Ouninpohja and Päijälä stages are returned to their more normal form for this year. Last year Ouni caught quite a few. The year before it was not that bad. I'm not sure how it'll lower the average speed though.

[Eli]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report...sen-test-debut

[Simmi]

Interesting discussion here. Just watching it now. Some good info from Mads on the realities of being a customer team, settings, information sharing etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ8e...ature=youtu.be