WRC2 / WRC3 News & Rumours 2022

[Danny0405]

Kajto looking to be in a good position to considering only competed in 3 events this season and leading that championship with most following having done 4. Would need to refresh myself on how WRC2 scoring is worked out though to know how big an advantage that is.

Well not a definitive one but clearly, he has a big advantage compared with all of his competitors right now: he has the right to make one bad result if he is doing 7 events; he will be in Estonia and apparently skipped Finland; so theoretically, we should see him in Belgium, Greece and Spain.
However, he is a little slower than most of his competitors so if a Mikkelsen does 3x wins to end the season, Andreas will win the championship.
Being consistent could be enough for Kajto but it will depend if a competitor crushes all for the rest of the season (and also the number of retirements above him in the rallies he will compete because being 5th for example is not really a good result).

[Danny0405]

Hayden Paddon says that his return is a bigger challenge than he initially thought. In Rally Lepaja it was hard for him to even get into top 3:
https://www.fiaerc.com/erc/news/erc/...or-wrc-return/

Not a big surprise to me that it is not that simple, it looks a lot like Atkinson’s comeback; and personally, I didn’t think we could see him that high for his 2 first European outings. Let’s see what he can do in Estonia and Finland (but competition will also be higher)

[Danny0405]

Some updates on both WRC-2 and WRC-3 (mainly Junior as WRC-3 alone is not an important championship) after Estonia:

- great drive by Mikkelsen to take back the lead with a sensational Power Stage; Suninen was close before PS but I think Mikkelsen was managing for this one considering the length of the last day; good fight anyway. It was essential to achieve this kind of result for the championship.
- another nightmare result for Bulacia (the older one) with a costly mistake whereas his rally was good. Complete nightmare season for him (and for Toksport championship team even if it doesn’t matter really)
- Lindholm, great 1st day, much more average after that but he is in the game for WRC-2 Junior championship; Huttunen average drive in spite of the evolutions of the car
- Kajto, difficult to do better than this, he loses the lead in the championship but with one rally less; not a big result but it could still be useful if some competitors have issues later on. However, as evoked before, winning or losing the championship is more in his competitors’ hands than in his hands; he is not in the game to match the RC2 top 5 so he will depend on the mistakes of the others.

Championship situation should be clearer after Belgium (all main competitors should be at 5 rounds) and even more after Greece.

In WRC-3 Junior, big fight before the double-count last round in Greece (even if I must admit I’m not a huge fan of all these count-pointing tricks which fakes a bit the true nature of the championship in some cases with the double-counting last round, the 4-out-of rule this year + the point-stage win which is a bit less annoying):
Current standing is:
Pajari 85 (77 with worst result excluded)
Armstrong 85 (68)
Virves 84 (76)
Joona 79 (66)

Pajari won but Virves was incredibly fast (he even did a 11th time in SS23, tying his own best from Croatia and Portugal even if best RC3 WRC stage finish is Pajari 8th in Croatia for the moment).
So basically, Greece will be a winner-take-all (ok, not exactly true with the stage points).
Pajari is probably the front-runner for Greece but on technical gravel, Armstrong is able to match; and Virves is able of everything.
More complicated for Joona on the other hand, he sounds a bit lower in terms of speed (only 6 stage wins in the season against 21-26 range for the 3 other guys) and should hardly be in the game except if all the other 3 are making mistakes or having issues (and even winning the rallye could be not enough for him depending on the stage wins). But in that type of championship and in a rough rallye like Acropolis, who knows.
Still skeptical about Franceschi’s decision to withdraw (except if he had a deal to postpone his prize for next year for him or his brother), he could have been in the game in this situation by just staying steady before Greece; as he is doing rallies in France, I suppose it is not totally about injury.

[br21]

you wrongly calculated the points with worst round excluded.

[Danny0405]

you wrongly calculated the points with worst round excluded.

Possible but it would be better with an explanation:

As far as I see (WRC.com)
Pajari is 85 and worst result is 8 (Croatia) so he has 77 points with the 3 best results
Armstrong is 85 and worst result is 17 (Croatia) so it is 68 based on 3 best results so far
Virves is 84 and worst result is 8 (Sweden) so it is 76
Joona is 79 and worst result is 13 (Estonia) so it is 66

And annex VIII 3.1.3 of 2022 Sporting regulation is saying that only the 4 best results will be taken into account.
Except you meant that this point is excluding not for the lowest number of points but only for the worst rallye ranking but with special stage points still counting even for this rallye (I remember a rule like this existing at one moment but clearly even more messy than it is already; but maybe you’re right with the «*classification results*» term used in the rule):
In that case, yeah, it’s different, it should be
Pajari 85 (0 point excluded as retired in Croatia)
Virves 76 (-8 for 6th in Sweden)
Armstrong 73 (-12 for 4th in Croatia)
Joona 67 (-12 for 4th in Estonia)

Still close game but I agree it is less if it is this

[WRCStan]

Either Pajari or Joona could win Open and still finish 5th in Junior.

[pantealex]

Either Pajari or Joona could win Open and still finish 5th in Junior.

Yep, Armstrong and Virves have 0 open starts.

[Jarek Z]

Here's an interesting video of Miko Marczyk's test before Rally Finland 2022, recorded by a camera on his helmet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL1eVobU9Gc

[Jarek Z]

Mads Ostberg helps Miko Marczyk in his preparations for Rally Finland:
https://scontent.fktw1-1.fna.fbcdn.n...0g&oe=62EF389A

[Jarek Z]

Gryazin crashed already on shakedown:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1K6Rd4jUEo