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Shouldn't be put all this stuff about Araujo's "hidden potential" in another thread? Don't think all this really fits in this one.
I remember some guy pulling their hair for much less than this until he was appointed moderator, looks like now he can't take charge of his duties.
no no, misunderstood this forum completely. The right attitude should be "don't open this thread" ... Asyou may have witnessed yourself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cacatua
This is exactly the point. And the examples I gave were merely to counter an emphatic, and incorrect, statement made by NOT.Quote:
Originally Posted by tommeke_B
The drivers I have mentioned, at various times, drove cars of full factory spec whilst not being one of the 2,3 or 4 drivers in the factory team.
This is primarily for two reasons which I've already stated. 1. The factories embraced top privateers using their brand, often even assisting them in their efforts and/or relying on them to carry the flag.
And 2. The cars were permitted to be built by the privateers who had access to the componentry and it was not unheard of for the privateers to develop improvements which the factory would homologate.
There existed a level of 'co-operation' across the sport which provided opportunity for privateers to demonstrate their ability which does not exist today. And that is to the detriment of the game.
the thing is the drivers you mention did not achieve anything better than the private drivers of today (hirvonen when he was driving the viita car was quite fast, novikov won stages in private citroens, same as solberg and ostberg ects), thus this leads to the assumption that the private cars to the past were also downgraded, their drivers had good results but never a real chance at winning.Quote:
Originally Posted by sollitt
Excuse me ??? Perhaps NOT, in your haste to discredit everybody else's writings, you might take a little time to learn about the sport of which you claim to be an expert.
Mikkola won NZ in '79 in a Masport prepared & run car, Robson was 2nd, Vatenan 3rd in the factory car. '79 GB Brookes was 2nd, (and how many other times did he achieve a similar finish?), in '82 Blomqvist won Sweden, what did Vatanen achieve in a David Sutton car, Auriol in a Jolly Club car, Sainz in the private Sierra Cosworth.
All of the drivers that I mentioned earlier were on the pace of, and achieving results against, the factory efforts. Or perhaps in partnership with them and that's the difference to today.
The fact is in the Grp4 era you could obtain the same componentry, or make your own, and build the car in your shed at home. There was no dumbing down because no one else had control.
Even as recently as the GrpA/WRC era if you owned the car you had total freedom to build it within the framework, and to the absolute limits, of the homologation. And privateers could, and did, achieve results against, or alongside, the factories.
The difference today is that you cannot build a compliant car in your shed and neither can you buy one. You can only lease, with presumably a list of clauses restricting your access to technology and freedom to tamper with it. Consequently your performance is entirely at the whim of the manufacturer.
What about Manfred Stohl? =)
Well Prodrive-Mini and Dani did something wonderful today. First win for a MINI rally car in an "international" series. Also Dani's first win in the same circumstances. Who would have thought it would take so long?
still the results of todays privateers are not that far from the ones you mention...Quote:
Originally Posted by sollitt
Ostberg in sweden last year, Hirvonen and latvalas performance as well with their private entries...and also solberg the last few years
I am not trying to discredit you.... but the facts indictate that the difference between the private cars of today with the private cars of the past is not that big as people imagine....the manufacturers were the ones that dominated and dominate with the private cars trying to catch up in both eras... what did the privateers of the past achieved more than the privateers oft he present era ?? i cannot see a huge difference which would indictae that the private cars of the past eras had exactly the same stuff as the manufacturers.
Mikkola won in a private car, Vatanen won in a private car, Blomquist won, Jonsson won etc, etc, etc...Quote:
Originally Posted by N.O.T
How? By producing and running a car the equal of the works cars, either in competition or in collaberation with the factory. And as often as not it was the latter.
Your problem NOT is that you are theorizing an issue which is really simply black and white. The private cars of past era were able to be the equal of the factory cars because the componentry was freely available as was the ability to 'engineer' the car yourself. Freedoms not available today.
The factories have never had a monopoly on engineering skill. They won 90% of the time because they had the greatest resource and employed the top drivers, often 3, 4 or 5 per team.
Where the factories did have it over the privateers, other than budgetry, was in the timing of certain homologations and with 3rd party contracts (i.e. tyre suppliers) working to their advantage ... although these could work both ways as with Blomquists private contract with Michelin favouring him over the Audi team in Sweden '82.
I must say i do not know much about the technical regulations of the eras previous to the 90s... but as i said the wins you mention came from a straight fight ? or with an Ostberg/portugal flavour...especially in the old times where survival skills mattered more than speed... ??
i just cannot accept the fact that factory teams would give away their technical knowledge that easy in the old times, while now they control their private entries as they wish...
My belief is that the teams always had something extra on privateers.... but the fact that technology was not that advanced 30-40 years ago and things were more mechanical than electronic made it easier for the privateers then to be closer to the manufacturer....but i doubt a privateer would drive exactly the same car...after all they had to buy the parts from somewhere, and results show that manufacturers had always the upper hand apart from a few specialised events or when things went wrong for them retirement wise... a bit like today... you can see private entries shinning on specialised events (panizzi monte 99, ostberg sweden last year ects) but the general picture remains that the manufacturer entry is ahead.