[WRC] 70th Rally Finland 2021

[samzon100]

Pictures Secto Rally Finland 2021
Shakedown, SS3, SS5, SS9, SS13 and SS19

https://samzon.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Secto+...Finland+10.21/

[dupanton]

2021 first time no Scandinavian drivers on podium

I thought Scandinavia is Denmark, Sweden and Norway. So 2019, 2017, 2016... had no scandinavian drivers on the podium already. It happened quite often

[satnav]

I didn’t get to follow the rally properly even through TV because my kid was born on Saturday. It will be a memorable weekend!

Congratulations to you and your wife, here's to many happy days ahead.

[AnttiL]

I thought Scandinavia is Denmark, Sweden and Norway. So 2019, 2017, 2016... had no scandinavian drivers on the podium already. It happened quite often

Well, maybe replace ”Scandicavian” with ”Nordic”

[AnttiL]

https://youtu.be/l0nKsBCdnA8

Tänak moment on SS10

[tommeke_B]

Back from Finland too. Amazing weather, amazing scenery, amazing rally... Really happy to have seen this place in autumn for once. Maybe thanks to the dry weather, but the characteristics of the rally itself didn't really change in comparison to summer. Seen many amazing places, this rally never bores anyone, everytime you think you've seen it all, some other magic spot is right around the corner. The saturday stages remain the most interesting, by far, for me. Both Arvaja and Patajoki were nice additions. Sunday could use some change after 4 identical years (Myhinpaa will probably not be too fast anymore with next generation@ cars, if anyone needs a hint).

As facebook is down I don't have a place to upload an album yet. I took the opportunity to upload some photos from one spot on Kakaristo that had been on the back of my mind for years. Now it was more accessible as the "classic" Ouninpohja road wasn't used. It's on the narrow "rollercoaster" road that starts after the "fake" jump. IMO this is one of the craziest sections in the whole WRC. The situation on photo is a fast left hander that ends in a small jump after which the road turns right a little. It was crazy to see how different the approach from all drivers was, Breen looked by far fastest on this spot.

Greensmith


Ogier


Tänak


Suninen

[mknight]

Reflecting on the PS jumping I actually believe that the next years hybrids might jump as far or farther than this years WRCs.
Gryazin in R5 was already pretty much on same level as WRCs. Most notably the well balanced Polos seemed easy to control in the jump. WRCs seem pretty tricky with often nose down or nose up situations.

Hybrids vs WRCs
+less downforce
+likely better weight distribution
+better acceleration
- more weight
- less suspension travel (but same goes for current R5s and it wasn't a problem)

Fast turns will be something else though with Finland probably showing the biggest difference in speed trough corners.

[meh]

Here we go: https://dirtfish.com/rally/wrc/colin...river-ratings/

Elfyn Evans 10/10
Esapekka Lappi 8/10
Sébastien Ogier 5/10
Kalle Rovanperä 4/10
Takamoto Katsuta 3/10

Ott Tänak 9.5/10
Craig Breen 9/10
Thierry Neuville 3/10

Gus Greensmith & Adrien Fourmaux 5/10

edit - my own opinion:
* To take in account "toolbox what you can use", then personally I would say 10/10 for Top4 (Evans, Tänak, Breen, Lappi).
* Ogier did own thing, title-race safe-and-a-bit-lost-mode, hard to put rating, rally 5/10 is ok, title race perspective can be higher, as he did not went to drive over his known limits and got valuable points.
* Neuville - rating depends, was retirement caused by him or just car broke up? Flowing-flying is not clearly his style, but he showed some good times as well.
* Rovanperä - struggled with setup (and assumption, maybe with too much expectations and pressure)

[mknight]

I think it was ok this time, much better than Greece.
Would give Tanak 8 or max 9 /10 personally, because of the relatively small difference over Breen.

Rating MSport is kind of impossible atm.

[Eli]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJJRKwnlhOs&t=35s

A nice montage from what was their last gravel appearance for these spectacular cars. I have to admit, even though I only saw them once in real life (Deutschland 2019), I'm really going to miss them. They were truly something special & quite unique and I'm glad we got to have them in our championship even if it wasn't for the longest time (like 2.0 Turbo World Rally Cars).