Re: [ERC] Rally Liep?ja 2014 (31.1.-1.2. 2014)
Quote:
Originally Posted by mm1
I don't mind that they are spending their own money, just would love to see a higher level of competition.
You see the gaps, don't you?
I will play a bit of devil's advocate but for many of those drivers the snow/gravel conditions are very unusual. For Nordic drivers it might be easy like to walk but for drivers from asphalt countries it's different thing. For example Tarabus is 37 years old now but he never drove on these 15" tyres except Rally Norway 6 years a go and that is his only experience on Nordic winter stages. In Czech republic we have largely no snow this winter and also almost all roads here are asphalt ones so You can not practice here. He isn't a works drivers and he can not afford to crash the car on every unfamiliar rally only to find where the edge is to be faster next time. He also openly admits his driving is far from being fast.
But the same applies often when You guys from Baltic or Scandinavia come on asphalt :) I remember first asphalt event of Hänninen here with Škoda in 2009. He was pretty slow even compared to top national drivers. Kruuda or Plangi had a hard time here on Barum too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HarriK
We did 4 stages (1,2,3 and6) + one mid day service and last service of day...
Thanks Harri!
Re: [ERC] Rally Liep?ja 2014 (31.1.-1.2. 2014)
Quote:
Originally Posted by bluuford
Remember.. last year Kubica took many Christmas trees from the Finish forests with the same car.. nothing hapened..
Exactly, Kubica's Citroen survived something like that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhTVjMBdad8
so Bouffier must have been extremely unlucky to be stopped by such a small mistake.
Re: [ERC] Rally Liep?ja 2014 (31.1.-1.2. 2014)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mirek
I will play a bit of devil's advocate but for many of those drivers the snow/gravel conditions are very unusual. For Nordic drivers it might be easy like to walk but for drivers from asphalt countries it's different thing. For example Tarabus is 37 years old now but he never drove on these 15" tyres except Rally Norway 6 years a go and that is his only experience on Nordic winter stages. In Czech republic we have largely no snow this winter and also almost all roads here are asphalt ones so You can not practice here. He isn't a works drivers and he can not afford to crash the car on every unfamiliar rally only to find where the edge is to be faster next time. He also openly admits his driving is far from being fast.
That is exactly the problem of this sport. Mirek, you shouldn't play a role of devil's advocate, because a typical spectator doesn't care who has what kind of experience on what kind of surface. mm1 is a spectator - he buys a ticket and wants to see the show. If he doesn't get the show, he is disappointed. This is European Championship, so mm1 expects a good level of competition. Look at football. We had European Championship in football in Poland in 2012. Millions of people bought tickets and got the good show. That's why those millions of people still watch football and not rallying.
Re: [ERC] Rally Liep?ja 2014 (31.1.-1.2. 2014)
Our colleague John V makes interviews with drivers in every service stop. It's in Czech but I roughly translated interviews after leg 1. Source is here: http://www.autosport.cz/clanek.php?cl=16064
Esapekka Lappi: "It was good day. We weren't lucky in choosing the start position yesterday, we should have gone at the end not at the start. We lost some time with that but now we set the best time so it was good. We didn't mind the darkness. It's good we took the lead but it's not over yet, one more long day to come. It will be more equal tomorrow. The car was working perfectly, we enjoyed it and except the deep snow we had no problem."
Vasilij Gryazin: "There was a lot of gravel on the last two stages and I didn't cope with that very well but I think we did maximum we could today. The result is sure very good and I'm very satisfied. Sure, Lappi will be faster than me tomorrow, I have to be realistic. About the gearbox, I think we will change it now in the evening."
Craig Breen: „The problem was we had the car set for gravel so it didn't work good in deep snow but we need to fight with that. We already tried some changes. For tomorrow we will slightly change differential and suspension settings. Tomorrow we will hardly come up with something, we must simply go flat out all the time."
Sepp Wiegand: „The end of the day was finally all right. The road was much cleaner and it was much easier. I enjoyed driving more. I hope we won't have same problem with starting position tomorrow. I don't like to drive again in deep snow without a chance for improvement. We need to reach finish but in the same time I believe we will go fast enough."
Kajetan Kajetanowicz: „We are very satisfied how it all went today. We didn't do a single mistake and we were fast. It wasn't easy because we have no experience with conditions like this. I'm really happy we were able to fight with the European vice-champion Breen. The main thing is that we gained a lot of experience today."
Janis Vorobjovs: „The last two stages weren't easy because we had to go fast to keep with others but I managed to keep a speed I wanted. Now we'll take a rest and tomorrow we'll go fast again."
Jaroslav Orsák: „The last two stages were great, I enjoyed them. The setup isn't ideal yet but it was much better now as we had much more grip. We will change it a bit more and I hope in a good direction. The times were better now and hopefully it wasn't that terrible like in the morning. It's only our second start with this car so we have to learn but it's getting better."
Jaromír Tarabus: „The end of day was more on gravel, it was still snowy but the grip was better. We enjoyed a lot the penultimate stage which we managed great but on the last one we had several big moments and after one half we lost studs. Probably the driving was too aggressive, we also went off and lost some seconds there. The end of day therefore wasn't very good and honestly we did well only in one stage today. It was a real school today though. We could not do anything about the starting position and tomorrow it won't be much better I guess, let's see. From time to time we change something on the setup but Roman (Kresta - team boss) told us just to push so we try."
Jan ?erný: „The end of day wasn't bad but it could have been better. I started the last stage in a full attack mode and it was too much because in the half I had no studs. We shall have calmed it down and the time could have been twenty seconds better. Moreover we destroyed the tyres. Tomorrow we need to start like this morning but it's difficult because it must be smooth, not too aggressive. On the other hand it can not be too slow, You have to find the right speed. There was a lot of snow on third stage and I have never experienced that so I didn't do well there. In the second pass it was much better although with worse tyres. It gave us a lesson how to drive in these conditions. We are leading juniors so we are really happy."
Steve Rokland: „After stage five we were just sliding. We lost all studs on the last stage and it took a lot of time for us. But for tomorrow we have good tyres left so we'll see how we will do. We'll try to fight."
Petter Kristiansen: „We had a big moment on the last stage but luckily we escaped. The studs had a hard time but we still have some for tomorrow. We have broken exhaust, I cut one corner too much and hit it. I have to drive by head tomorrow but the stages are shorter and on some it will be possible to use used tyres but sure it will be difficult. After the second stage of today where we lost a lot of time we changed the tyre pressure and it was better. We'll see tomorrow but if we shall somehow specially save the tyres it would cost us too much time. It's not easy."
Re: [ERC] Rally Liep?ja 2014 (31.1.-1.2. 2014)
I see some drivers had problems with gone studs after half a stage on full attack, it is learning experience I guess in such Rallies.
Re: [ERC] Rally Liep?ja 2014 (31.1.-1.2. 2014)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mirek
Quote:
Originally Posted by mm1
I don't mind that they are spending their own money, just would love to see a higher level of competition.
You see the gaps, don't you?
I will play a bit of devil's advocate but for many of those drivers the snow/gravel conditions are very unusual. For Nordic drivers it might be easy like to walk but for drivers from asphalt countries it's different thing. For example Tarabus is 37 years old now but he never drove on these 15" tyres except Rally Norway 6 years a go and that is his only experience on Nordic winter stages. In Czech republic we have largely no snow this winter and also almost all roads here are asphalt ones so You can not practice here. He isn't a works drivers and he can not afford to crash the car on every unfamiliar rally only to find where the edge is to be faster next time. He also openly admits his driving is far from being fast.
But the same applies often when You guys from Baltic or Scandinavia come on asphalt :) I remember first asphalt event of Hänninen here with Škoda in 2009. He was pretty slow even compared to top national drivers. Kruuda or Plangi had a hard time here on Barum too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HarriK
We did 4 stages (1,2,3 and6) + one mid day service and last service of day...
Thanks Harri!
Well, guys. I have to say that the stages today was more like Rally Finland. Having said that sitting at home looking at a PC. But with gravel and winter tyres you just have to drive like it was summer and hard gravel roads. That´s my comment on todays stages which in my view wasn´t so hard to tackle.
Re: [ERC] Rally Liep?ja 2014 (31.1.-1.2. 2014)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jarek Z
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mirek
I will play a bit of devil's advocate but for many of those drivers the snow/gravel conditions are very unusual. For Nordic drivers it might be easy like to walk but for drivers from asphalt countries it's different thing. For example Tarabus is 37 years old now but he never drove on these 15" tyres except Rally Norway 6 years a go and that is his only experience on Nordic winter stages. In Czech republic we have largely no snow this winter and also almost all roads here are asphalt ones so You can not practice here. He isn't a works drivers and he can not afford to crash the car on every unfamiliar rally only to find where the edge is to be faster next time. He also openly admits his driving is far from being fast.
That is exactly the problem of this sport. Mirek, you shouldn't play a role of devil's advocate, because a typical spectator doesn't care who has what kind of experience on what kind of surface. mm1 is a spectator - he buys a ticket and wants to see the show. If he doesn't get the show, he is disappointed. This is European Championship, so mm1 expects a good level of competition. Look at football. We had European Championship in football in Poland in 2012. Millions of people bought tickets and got the good show. That's why those millions of people still watch football and not rallying.
Thats the problem, I'm not a spectator, not in the usual sense of word, I'm a few times Latvian champion, and I know this wasn't good enough, but you can think what you want!
Re: [ERC] Rally Liep?ja 2014 (31.1.-1.2. 2014)
Quote:
Originally Posted by mm1
I'm a few times Latvian champion
Allow me a wild guess. Matiss Mezaks ? :)
Re: [ERC] Rally Liep?ja 2014 (31.1.-1.2. 2014)
We must take into account that Gryazin was with 4 gears today mostly, so tomorrow might be a fight for the victory. The surprise of the Rally :)
Re: [ERC] Rally Liep?ja 2014 (31.1.-1.2. 2014)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jarek Z
That is exactly the problem of this sport. Mirek, you shouldn't play a role of devil's advocate, because a typical spectator doesn't care who has what kind of experience on what kind of surface. mm1 is a spectator - he buys a ticket and wants to see the show. If he doesn't get the show, he is disappointed. This is European Championship, so mm1 expects a good level of competition. Look at football. We had European Championship in football in Poland in 2012. Millions of people bought tickets and got the good show. That's why those millions of people still watch football and not rallying.
I don't agree with You. Even when You speak about football world championship the majority of teams play very terrible game compared to several top ones. I would not compare this at all because I have also watched quite a lot of terrible matches involving the best teams. It's simply something different.
You can compare ERC with WRC. The level of WRC competitors is higher than the level of ERC ones but that one is still higher than the one of WRC supporter championships. That's how it is. The second league is never better than the first league. Even in football.
