74th PZM Rally Poland

[spiderem]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIBaRYuJTV8

Lol those guys at 1:00

[dimviii]

But all the crews have mobile phones, so comunication is not a problem. Just to know exact localisation of that place is little bit complicated.

br any news from Poland?

[bearclaw]

The TV guys mentioned this on the live stage when Mikkelsen went straight on. They said the drivers waiting to run did not have team radio to warn them.

thanks for that. I missed that on the live stage. in other words it’s forbidden to communicate (via team radio or mobile phone) with the crews before the start of a stage to warn them.

But all the crews have mobile phones, so comunication is not a problem. Just to know exact localisation of that place is little bit complicated.

I think with live gps tracking maps and a google earth-stage map for example, it should be doable for a team member (maybe a former co-driver) to locate the spot and communicate the road book box in a few minutes to the crews.

[steve.mandzij]

thanks for that. I missed that on the live stage. in other words it’s forbidden to communicate (via team radio or mobile phone) with the crews before the start of a stage to warn them.



I think with live gps tracking maps and a google earth-stage map for example, it should be doable for a team member (maybe a former co-driver) to locate the spot and communicate the road book box in a few minutes to the crews.

Was it allowed in the past though? Henning told Sordo once to call him while he was at the start to alert him of the stone he'd just hit. There's a video and everything.


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[SubaruNorway]

They obviously can read the live text on wrc.com though, so some warning they have
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl7suASGXy8

[MartijnS]

So, a report of our rally experience.

We arrived on tuesday already, so had some time to recce the stages we planned on visiting on tuesday afternoon and wednesday.
Our first WRC visit of this year, so we were curious about what to expect!

Thursday shakedown, not a bad stage. A bit more possibilities than last years shakedown. Started at the small jump, left after most of the guys passed once and slowly moved back to halfway the stage during the morning. Already clear than that the Citroën wasn't the best car there..all over the place. A lot of spectators already, nice atmosphere! We planned on visiting the showstart, but cancelled due to the storm. Than went to SS1, not much special there, but still nice to see the battles.

Friday we planned on doing 4 stages, turned out to be only 2 so not such a good day haha.
Not being able to drive the entree roads due to mud/rain, we found to get to the jumps on the first part of the stage, we decided to go to stage 3 and try again in the afternoon. Nice fast righthander where we watched every car. Tanak had the craziest pass as more times that weekend. Decided to skip stage 5 as we had to leave on this stage after about 10 cars due to the 3 minute gaps. So than settled for only 3 stages on friday, but unfortunately we were at the cancelled stage 6 than.
Again 1.5 hours or so driving to the final stage of the day, again not being able to get to the spot we wanted due to muddy access road, but found a really nice fast right/left combination to finish the day, again watched the whole field as we didnt see that much, big save of Lindholm in the Fiesta, almost binned it there! So what we saw was good, but a 14 hour day in the rain for 2 stages is a bit too much haha.

Saturday again 4 stages planned and that worked out fine! Nice weather and some excellent spots. We marked a spot close after the start of the first stage of the day, was not perfect, but made some nice photos. Than off to the 4th stage of the loop. Nice jump with directly a left and right combination after it. Some great passes, especially Tanak, Ostberg and Latvala. Moving the car exactly past the haybale that was in the left corner after landing the jump. Than back again to the same stage as we did in the morning and that was one of the best spots of the weekend. Series of so so fast bends, amazing speeds and sideways action there. Back again to the last stage, fast spot over a crest where Mikkelsen ended up in the field in the first loop. Nice action there again, left after the WRC cars due to rain starting to fall.

Sunday we did the powerstage stage 2 times. First time at the last part with the jumps, was not great. One big spectator area and jump I was on wasn't that spectacular. Than we went to the spot where Tanak crashed, nice corner but also not that great. Than the annual rush to the airport, again one of the closest arrivals we ever had for a flight, same as last year. So much traffic.

Conclusion; such an epic rally to visit. Stages are so so spectacular and easy to reach (when the weather is good). Although it doesn't seem that way when you see all the videos, we find it really quite difficult to do what we want on the stages. On the quite parts we most of the times choose for some reason the marshalls really are strict and you need to be lucky to be be able to stand on a nice spot haha. You see that on the busiers spots there are not enough marshalls and things tend to get out of control but we didnt experience that except for 1 stage.
So we are hoping it will remain on the calender, cheap to visit (6 days for 400 euro per person incl appartment, rentalcar, flight and eating/drinking) Finland at least double the money and than this is an easy pick for us haha.
Think you've seen Joost his video already. Some photos of me:











More at our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pg/rallymed...93441414077157

Next WRC for us will be Germany, looking forward to it now!

[noel157]

Fantastic images Martijn, especially:

[dimviii]

Ogier photo at your post is amazing! thanks mate!!

[KKS]

I am still puzzled by the starting order for PS (Breen-Hanninen-Mikkelsen-Latvala(rally2)-Evans). Double-checking in Portugal it was (Paddon (rally2) - Meeke (rally 2) - Al Quasimi - Lefebvre ... ).

Just can't find any explanation and nobody seems to care. Latvala jumped Tanak in the standings due to the powerstage win. I'd say he probably wouldn't be able to win it from first place on the road.

If his starting position was correct, then why was it different in Portugal.

It's very simple

Start time of 1st car at SS22 was 10:45
Latvala's stage start was 11:21

1st car enter to regroup at 11:32
So Latvala time for regroup in - 12:08

1st car to leave regroup at 12:02 and it was a 4 min interval so
2nd at 12:06
3rd at 12:10 (2 min after Latvala in) - it was very risky give him only 2min to regroup
4th and actually Latvala time for regroup out - 12:14. And 6 min for regroup for Latvala.
Standard time of regroup - 30min

[drive]

fast.. https://youtu.be/6xikS0s_ouM