François Duval in Germany

[swordsman]

You have heard awfully lot swordsman.

That's because I'm a member of the new Swedish Rally Mafia. We don't even consider you finns as rivals. You are not even on the level of prospects for our mafia

[L5->R5/CR]

I can agree with you on Sweden and Finland. But come on, he won Australia, have you all forgotten that or something?

About the 'fully active' Xsara: It was a Belgian team with a Belgian sponsor and a Belgian driver, the specs of the car haven't been upgraded by Citroën Sport. Quite the opposite, Marc Van Dalen said the Xsara they had this year hadn't got all the evolutions like the one Loeb drove last year. So please stop all the bullcrap being posted here to diminish François' brilliant drive.

Even if Citroën asked to catch up on Marcus the last day, that wouldn't make any difference that François himself had to do it with a non-factory car. Why are you all looking for excuses for the fact that Duval beat Grönholm and the likes fair and square?

Of course he deserves his seat in the WRC, in all rallies.

It also stands to reason that Citroen now has more incentive to make sure the Kronos cars are as good as they can be.

Earlier in the season they didn't want Kronos entries taking away points from Dani. Now that they are behind in both championships its more important to take points away from Ford and their drivers than preserve the opportunity to score maximum points.

I have no doubt that Citroen is more willing to send the top specification parts and support drivers with legitimate shots at taking points from Ford (the makes championship is drifting out of reach but Sebastien can win the drivers still, 4 times drivers champion with the first or second place in the makes championship would be great press).

Duval is there to take points from other drivers. He will have the best opportunity to do that otherwise there is no point for Citroen to make sure he is there...

[ZequeArgentina]

Stohl said it after August break, the car in Finland was already good, and the same for Germany, just that he got some other troubles, not lack of speed.

For me it is clear that situation is not the same, even Van Dalen stopped criticism just before Finland, when they got the speed back.

[Singulus]

Duval's performance in Germany was nothing but expected. It's in the statistics - Duval has a solid record of two second places in Germany, which for such young driver is quite respectable, whether or not someone will "tag" him with "tarmac specialist" or something like that.
I think that Duval is the combination of a extremely talented driver with a lot of bad luck...of course, not everything is a bad luck, but the people quite easily forget the fact that Duval is the youngest driver with a podium finish and one of the youngest with a victory.

About "specialization" - every driver start with some specialization, which he will have to overcome with time, hard work and sweat in order to become a world champion...at least in recent years we witness just that - a driver enters the series, with some "specialization" and in a couple of years it is almost evident whether the driver development will leads to a championship material or not...the specialist becomes generalist with specialization...Loeb was tarmac specialists, who in 2-3 years becomes almost on par with the "gravel benchmarks" Gronholm and Solberg...almost the same with Gronholm - recently he becomes quite fast on tarmac, because he need to collect points from everywhere - not anymore specialists in the third factory car that prevents the competition to escape with extra points in some specialized round.

Whether or not Duval is championship material - it depends, and the future will show...I personally think that he along with Hirvonen and Sordo are clearly the best 3 of the rest, the guys are still quite young, and a lot of development will take place - for example, Duval is quite fast, even on gravel, but inconsistent, Sordo for sure will learn how to drive fast on gravel, he already shows quite good times for his limited experience, Hirvonen already has the reliability and the speed...

[jacko]

Duval's performance in Germany was nothing but expected. It's in the statistics - Duval has a solid record of two second places in Germany, which for such young driver is quite respectable, whether or not someone will "tag" him with "tarmac specialist" or something like that.
I think that Duval is the combination of a extremely talented driver with a lot of bad luck...of course, not everything is a bad luck, but the people quite easily forget the fact that Duval is the youngest driver with a podium finish and one of the youngest with a victory.

About "specialization" - every driver start with some specialization, which he will have to overcome with time, hard work and sweat in order to become a world champion...at least in recent years we witness just that - a driver enters the series, with some "specialization" and in a couple of years it is almost evident whether the driver development will leads to a championship material or not...the specialist becomes generalist with specialization...Loeb was tarmac specialists, who in 2-3 years becomes almost on par with the "gravel benchmarks" Gronholm and Solberg...almost the same with Gronholm - recently he becomes quite fast on tarmac, because he need to collect points from everywhere - not anymore specialists in the third factory car that prevents the competition to escape with extra points in some specialized round.

Whether or not Duval is championship material - it depends, and the future will show...I personally think that he along with Hirvonen and Sordo are clearly the best 3 of the rest, the guys are still quite young, and a lot of development will take place - for example, Duval is quite fast, even on gravel, but inconsistent, Sordo for sure will learn how to drive fast on gravel, he already shows quite good times for his limited experience, Hirvonen already has the reliability and the speed...

well said, think that Duval is even faster than Hirvonen, Atkinson and Sordo. But consistent yes.. well it's better to crash at maximum speed (as he showed in the past) so you learn faster your and your car's limit's. Really think he's the man to replace Gronholm after he retires, some name Latvala but he's still too far away to play with the big boys..
Go Duval !!

[Finni]

Bump!

Funny thread. Mikko and Marcus can't drive on asphalt and Dudu is hero with inferior Xsara.

This years Germany gives some more perspective.

[spudrsca]

Bump!

Funny thread. Mikko and Marcus can't drive on asphalt and Dudu is hero with inferior Xsara.

This years Germany gives some more perspective.

I agree but you can't compare, last year he had a car that he knew quite well and with the set-up optimized for his driving style.
And on the last day he pushed like a madman because he had to be in front of Grönholm at all costs.

I have an article in a newspaper after the 1 day test with the Ford and even if he was quite impressive he was not very satisfied because he said that he must find the right set-up as he has a completely different driving style on tarmac than Hirvonen and Latvala, as he is left-foot breaking much more than the Finns on Tarmac.