Malcolm and losing with no dignity

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Originally Posted by sal

Anyone who thinks this a Ford speciality or something new is talking thru their third eye. Lancia were notorious in the 80s for this and Mitsu ran into controversy when Makinen was asked to slow down for Erikkson in Swden in the mid 90s. This is a business first and a sport second and therefore decisons are taken for commercial reasons. If Ford pull out and dont homogolate a version of the Fiesta the WRC will be made up of 4 Citroens and a few wealthy sons of Scandavians and how joyous will that be but at least you wont be able to whinge about their tactics...

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I'd rather see the WRC fail miserably and die than see it dragging it's fat ugly butt along the ground like a dog in need of being put down.

What people fail to grasp is that Ford Abu Dhabi Castrol BP whatever are not the same as Stobart. I freely accept that Duval could move aside for Mikko but to use a Stobart car is just against the spirit of the rules. I've always said that if Ford want to have a 4 or 5 car team then they should field one and not pretend that they've got an M1 and M2 team. Imagine the uproar if the Ferrari engined Toro Rosso's moved aside to let their Ferrari cousins through without resisting. It's not cricket...... it's just not right and I'm sure even Malcolm knows it.....

If the Stobart cars are part of the same team then they should be treated as if they are in the same team and not be allowed to score M2 points while assisting the M1 team. It's taken the combined efforts of 5 Ford drivers to get within 23 points of the 2 C4's. If Malcolm put as much money into developing the car as he did into stacking the odds in his favour by entering lots of cars then they might be able to challenge Citroen.

But Malcolm didn't chose to do that and is going to get boned spectacularly. I hope Citroen wait till Rally GB to really ram it down Malcolm's throat that he's lost badly

well, think you people overreact a bit. Ford still has got a small chance so why not. Even with the manufacturers they gain a point extra with this solution. Normally Hirvonen was the second man but he was a bit unlucky. Malcolm Wilson took the right decision and i have no problem with that.
2 years ago in Australia he also had the choice to drop Hirvonen back from the leading position in benefit for Gronholm but he didn't. After that Gronholm couldn't become the champ anymore. And Ford don't use tacticts in the beginning of the season, so today was okay.
I really hope, most of you, the drivers and teamboses that the starting order for day 2 & day 3 will be like previous years, that was okay.

With regard to dropping Hirvonen back in '06 and '07 to help Gronholm, there weren't too many opportunities anyway, were there? As far as I recall, Hirvonen was always either a dutiful second to his elder Finn in a Ford 1-2, or the two drivers were sandwiched by Loeb.

Norway '07 does come to mind (where I think Hirvonen headed a 1-2), but that was early in the season and as since they resigned him, Ford have always had confidence in him, perhaps they were unsure as to whether he should suddenly become a title contender himself.

It did make my pickems more correct, so in that way team orders were fine...

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Originally Posted by ChickenMcNugget

With regard to dropping Hirvonen back in '06 and '07 to help Gronholm, there weren't too many opportunities anyway, were there?

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In Deutschland 2007 Mikko was 3rd and Marcus 4th - at that point both were close to Loeb in championship points but still that one extra point for Marcus might have changed the course for the rest of the season.

Malcolm hasn't interfered with drivers' championship battles before, so his favoritism towards Mikko at the moment is somewhat confusing to me. I understand that he wanted both M1 Fords ahead of Stobart ones for manu points but dropping Duval behind Mikko was a clear drivers' championship move.

Interesting, old dog can learn new tricks.

well if Mr hirvonen was so much against the team orders he could just take a penalty to drop behind duval without risking the manufacturers points...but i guess he was fine with the decision.

I wonder is Duval getting paid?

If so, I expect Structro are paying for JML to learn to how drive on tarmac??

With JML's impressive showing, Structro has just allowed JML to shoe-horn Duval out of a works seat next year..... Brilliant!?

Not good business, for such clever people.

This mess are the cracks of a system which is broken, and a strenghtening driver market.

We just need one more manufacturer, and we will see the back of rich kids vying for points.

WRC is only now enjoyable, i would imagine, if you are performing in the circus.

To the rest of us, its a farce.

I was actually a tad confused as to why Duval didn't drop behind Hirvonen in Germany. Did I miss the reason? Duval even expressed a willingness to do so, in the Autosport report at least.

I'm not too sure what the Australia '06 situation was, but had Ford secured the manufacturers' title by then? I could've sworn they hadn't.

I'm speechless...

I guess this season is over for me now. :mark:

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Originally Posted by A.F.F.

I'm speechless...

I guess this season is over for me now. :mark:

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A.F.F lost for words?? surely not...