Rally Deutschland 2012

[stefanvv]

Before this year people said that the change with the running order would be good "against" Loeb, and again nothing changed...

I'm glad we have QS now. Seems drivers are driving at full speed at gravel rallies

[Zeropt]

During the last year I lost totally my respect for Loeb. He was not willing to compete with Ogier and he forced Citroën to release Ogier´s contract and go away from his team.

Now Loeb is very happy. He is able to win all the time and the WRC is the situation like never before...

x2!

[hanjob11]

Hello,

some pictures of todays stages ar online at rally3.de









Karsten

[Tom206wrc]

Matthieu Arzeno 10th overall !!! Keep that work tomorrow Matthieu !!!

[r199]

@ Karsten last photo is the best, mmm

[janvanvurpa]

A lot of people are dreaming here. People said that the Xsara was made for Loeb, and that was why he won. For the '06 season they said "let's see what Loeb will do without electronic diffs". Nothing changed. For the '07 season they said "We'll see if he will be so competitive with the C4 also." Yes he was... Later it was "everyone has the same tyres from now on, Loeb will not have his advantage from Meteo France and from better tyres anymore." And still, he won. Before last year some said that he wouldn't be so competitive with the "less-sofisticated" 1.6T WRC cars, but... Before this year people said that the change with the running order would be good "against" Loeb, and again nothing changed... Always the same people who find out ridiculous excuses. Post 676 is a good joke also by the way "The car is made for Loeb." What did you expect?! Of course Loeb helped with the development, but first, a car is made to go as fast as possible, I don't believe that engineers care much about how easy a car is to drive (by the way, in National championships we see that the C4 WRC's are much more difficult to drive than the Focus WRC's), all they want is the best results, and so does Loeb... And why did Loeb not change team? Imagine that you have found your dream-job, working in a healthy company with collegues you know for years, people who listen to what your opinion is, and also people who speak your own language. WHY would you change to another company with less financial-healthy conditions,.

I wonder if the decisive thing is just that very thing about long term relationships and mutual respect...You're right, its totally absurd, insane even to zero in on and claim "The car is built just for Loeb".. Well who the hell is Ford building their car for? Ben Klock? Me?
I keep referencing this old long interview with Christian Loriaux in magazine Racecar Engineering right when he came aborad at Prodrive---and subsequently we know, right when Subaru began their sudden and drastic decline that led to them leaving WRC...
Now all the details of things are one thing, but the shocking and lasting impression of the article was his enormous ego, and how he said in many ways, and in clear way that the drivers are not capable of understanding "all the systems" like he can
and so, in essence, not explicite but clear nonetheless, you (he) really don't need to listen to their uneducated subjective feedback..because HE knows better everything going on in the car..

Now I'm not making this up, I love languages and I read very very well, and not just superficially, when i read I understand when you say things you imply tons of more things......and this was English so not too hard to understand...
Quite frankly I could not believe what he was saying and implying---except that I have known academics and engineers exactly like this who "know" they know in short "everything" and that their "knowledge" trumps all other opinions and that includes direct experience..
Now most people I know over 20-30 years don't seem to change their "world view". They may learn more details but their view of their relationship to the external world doesn't change--probably not from when they're children..

So if he was saying you can't listen to the drivers back then, and he's clearly the darling child of M-Sprout, then why would he listen to anybody.

This makes me wonder if the key to Loebs long success is a more co-operative or collaborationist atmosphere at Citroen vis-a-vis Loeb and the designers/engineers and maybe even down to the mechanics vs the "Great man" theory in the more hierarchical British culture which we have no reason to think doesn't permeate M-sport. And that observation is from working with elite level French mechanics and teams and being around elite or former elite British mechanics and engineers....

Or the opposite way to look at it is maybe the struggles of the other teams stems from their probably more hierarchical organisation, and people....

I base that on the times which like I did claculate yesterday, Petter was cruising along at an actual 0.997% of Loebs times.
So the car can do it, the drivers can do it down to 0.003% (that's three one thousandth of 1 percent).
But something cracks consistently... maybe so simple as Team 'atmosphere'?

[tfp]

I agree on that.
the events with ogier make the statements of duval pretty credible to me. and if we know/suspect that both ogier and duval where not allowed to compete with loeb, it is doubtful sordo or hirvonen where free to do it.

yes, loeb is the best, i don't think anybody would disagree on that. but if he wouldn't have had the best car for most of the years, combined with a teammate who works only for him, he would not have 8 titles.

What if Gronholm was Loebs team mate all those years ago? Then Loeb may only have 5 titles instead of 9

There again, I might not have watched WRC then,I dont like the sight of blood....

[dimviii]

The pain is the same that avoided Loeb of changing team. Simple.

Jari and Mikko from what i ve heard were payed at Ford less than half million.Loeb was at 6 millions these years and about 12 only from Citroen(a move to Ford =loss of red bull also=> more millions).Can you show me a champion that he changed the winning team for 1/7 of money when he haven t got any problem?Waiting for your example.

[rallye-sport]

2nd day -> Photos Rallye Allemagne 2012

[stefanvv]

This makes me wonder if the key to Loebs long success is a more co-operative or collaborationist atmosphere at Citroen vis-a-vis Loeb and the designers/engineers and maybe even down to the mechanics vs the "Great man" theory in the more hierarchical British culture which we have no reason to think doesn't permeate M-sport. And that observation is from working with elite level French mechanics and teams and being around elite or former elite British mechanics and engineers....

Team atmosphere is good when Mr. Matton orders the pawns on the board.