To be exactly correct, he's doing the TER events with the old Hyundai i20 R5 and WRC2 events with the new i20 N Rally2.Quote:
Originally Posted by wyler
https://twitter.com/HaydenPaddon/sta...34212758515712
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To be exactly correct, he's doing the TER events with the old Hyundai i20 R5 and WRC2 events with the new i20 N Rally2.Quote:
Originally Posted by wyler
https://twitter.com/HaydenPaddon/sta...34212758515712
Wrc2 entry
Biolghini (Skoda Fabia rally2) start in Sardegna
Campagnoli (Hyundai i2o rally2) start in Sardegna and Acropolis
Sami Pajari will start Sardegna with Toksport's Skoda Fabia
http://www.loudlifemedia.fi/pajari-t...an-mm-ralliin/
Chris Ingram focusing on consistency...
https://www.wrc.com/en/news/2022/wrc...c2-junior-bid/
Ingram achieved his goal and won WRC2 Junior at Rally Portugal by over a minute.
Well, may sound early for a first evaluation but we are already at mid-season for the European rallies and most of the main drivers have already done 3 to 4 rallies.
In the championship, really difficult to forecast the final outcome with all the mistakes and engine-related retirements even if the championship should be played in the 115-125 points range. Rossel currently leads but, without trouble, Kajto could (and even should) take the lead after Safari; and except him, no one has the right for another bad result now to win the championship.
Here is the current points of the main contenders (I took Toksport main bunch + Kajto + the leader of the other brands).
Rossel 63 (4 rounds already contested)
Gryazin 52 (4)
Mikkelsen 51 (4)
Ingram 44 (4)
Kajto 38 (2)
Huttunen 33 (3)
Lindholm 21 (2)
M. Bulacia 0 (4)
Suninen 0 (2)
About the main question for a support serie «*who could be in main class last year?*» (for sure, not evoking Kajto because too old):
- Mikkelsen is, without a doubt, the best Rally2 driver at the moment in terms of speed-consistency balance. But his two engine-related retirements limits a little what he could show and he is not that easy in terms of speed even if he is not 100% probably. But with no real improvement margin and probably a couple of rallyes needed to get less rusty in the main class and to know Rally1 cars, I’m not sure he is what a WRC team needs (Batman-style: «*he is the driver WRC deserves but not the one he needs right now*» :D ). If he doesn’t obtain a couple of rallies in RC1 this year, I think he will enter in the Ostberg category and never come back in main class.
- Suninen: well, he was fast in Portugal but messing up a result with a mistake like this with his experience and when you apply for a manufacturer spot, sounds not good at all. Difficult to assess his performance in Sardegna with mechanical issues but if the Hyundai is still not reliable, it will be difficult for him to show his level. He will need a strong summer.
Then, there are 4-5 drivers I would rank at the same level approximately so far this season if I consider the difference of level of the car, the difference of experience, ... None of them can really be sure to reach RC1 drives because they are not «*no-brainer talents*» but they are the only one with some credibility at the moment; however, for a team, I’m not sure it’s interesting to make investment on them with a learning period to be done whereas you can invest in a Loubet for example who has already done it. Maybe none of them will never each RCA but maybe one or two can reach RC1 drives thanks to good results this summer, some sponsorships or a team willing to take a bet (and I still hope Toyota will give at least a half-a-season program to a driver like this because it’s what is needed from a manufacturer who wants to install in WRC) and also some RC1 youngsters such as Fourmaux messing up (and guys like Lappi not being efficient):
- Rossel: well, interesting drives in Croatia and Portugal, some speed has been shown but in the end, even if he is leading the championship right now, sounds like he spoiled opportunities with his two mistakes in Monte Carlo and Sardegna, all the more than they happened when he tried to increase the pace so may let some doubts about his potential. I may be harsh but when you are in your 5th RC2 season and you’re targeting a RC1 job with not a big support (because Stellantis will clearly not help him to get a RC1 job for another brand), you cannot afford that type of mistakes. Nothing is lost but he will have to be better in the last rallies.
- Gryazin: well, speed is not the issue with him as he has shown again this season. But he still lacks a bit of consistency which can afraid some team directors, all the more with his experience that is a bit higher than most of the guys I rank here. Can Spain be the beginning of a new era for him? Not sure also that the political context will help him.
- Ingram: consistent yes (and more than the others so far) but clearly lacks a bit of extra-speed so far compared with the others; even if we could say he has one year less of experience than Rossel, he is not more impressive so far than 2021 Rossel’s season. He will need to show that he can combine speed and consistency in his last 3 rounds. Not a bad driver but at the moment, if I was a team director, I’m not sure I would want to spend a learning period with him more than taking a guy that is already doing it (Loubet, Solberg, ...)
- Huttunen: well, nothing sensational but I’m not sure a lot of Rally2 drivers can make two podiums in Sweden and Sardegna with infamous Fiesta Rally2 and in spite of two punctures in Sardegna where he has shown great pace by sequence, all the more with M-Sport really not caring about Rally2 currently. He may not be first in my personal list but he may be the one with the greatest probability so far to reach RC1 level: some links with M-Sport, Latvala had his name in short-list last year and he seems to be able to bring some sponsorship to fund partially a first season (and he may have a first Rally1 outing in Finland this year).
- Lindholm: well, difficult to evaluate his season so far with only 2 rallies (but we have some ideas from last season) and we should see him a lot more during the summer. As last season, some great speed (like Croatia’s Power Stage) and some mistakes. Wait and see for him.
Nightmare season for Marco Bulacia: some bad luck with mechanical-related retirements but he also made mistakes on his side. A big step backward for him this season.
Cais and Linnamae began well their season (MC for Cais, Sweden for Linnamae) but have proven to be too soft since then.
Some drivers have shown interesting pace on one individual event but a bit early to say something about them (Jan Solans, Veiby and even Pajari considering his experience). Bruno Bulacia did also some good stage times for a first WRC season but never did it to the end so no big sense to evoke him at the moment as a Rally1 contender.
A bit long summary maybe, Up to you to make additional comments if you have some points you want to add or you disagree.
I think you are being a bit harsh on Rossel. He has clearly upped his game a notch since the end of last year, from leading the old WRC3 and a 3-5th in RC2 class, to bringing the fight to Mikkelsen, who as you said, i the "yardstick" of WRC2 and a proven WR Cwinner (not WDC material, but still). Yes a few mistakes have been made, but who doesn't when trying ? I currently see more potential in him than in Fourmaux tbh ... His future looks bleak however as Citroen will pull out at season end ...Quote:
Originally Posted by Danny0405
Huttunen definitely has potential but is hard to judge so far, having moved from the dreadful original Hyundai RC2 car to the equally horrendous Fiesta of today. And Gryazin remains a mystery : Reminds me of the early Armin Schwarz : Blistering fast but enable to find the limit before binning it out. Schwarz did enjoy a long WRC carreer, though ... Also given that he seems to have good financial backing, i wonder why he never tried the odd RC1 drive ...
Best six of seven scores is still too few in a thirteen round calendar, thus it’s difficult to take the result of the championship too seriously but rather look at performances on individual events.
It’s still possible for championship rivals to barely come into direct competition with each other and a couple of retirements through bad luck or unreliability can really scupper your season.
They either need to have WRC2 only on certain nominated rounds, or increase the number of scores you need to count.
Is there anything to be read into who the entrant is with everything you say or mostly meaningless? That is:Quote:
Originally Posted by Danny0405
Ph-Sport
Toksport 2
Toksport
Ingram
Kajto
M-Sport
Toksport 2
Toksport
Hyundai
Really difficult to do more I think; WRC-2 is already incredibly expensive for a driver, don’t see how you can do much more than this and keeping an interesting championship at the same time. And I don’t agree with you about direct competition, the rallies big drivers are doing are quite similar: for example, Rossel and Mikkelsen has already done together Monte-Carlo, Portugal and Sardegna (and we can probably add Greece and possibly Catalunya); Gryazin have faced Mikkelsen in Monte-Carlo, Sweden and Sardegna for WRC-2. In Sardegna, Rossel, Mikkelsen, Gryazin, Ingram, Bulacia, Suninen were there in WRC-2. And competition will also be quite big in Estonia and Finland for sure. Only real particular move so far is Kajto in Safari; but except that, I think we will not find one European rally with less than 4 of the best 8 drivers (Toksport bunch except Bulacia + Kajto-Suninen-Rossel-Huttunen) of the season in entry list and in most of them, it is more 5 or 6. And I would be surprised to see one of these drivers in New Zealand or Japan.Quote:
Originally Posted by RS
Agree that the championship standing itself has not to be read on a pure mathematical basis but still, you need to show yourself really good in 3 or 5 events in my opinion to be a contender for a RC1 spot, not just in one. And so you’re necessarily high-ranked (at least top 10) which such results (I mean except mechanical failure).
Do WRC2 drivers have to do one 'long-haul' event in a season ?
No, just best 6 scores from any 7 rounds. Same for Juniors.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fast Eddie WRC
In the Masters Cup they score in 5 of 6 nominated rounds in Europe, and can grab a bonus 6th score from a 7th round outside Europe. This is the same with WRC2 Teams. But I'm not sure what happens if they do 5 European rounds and 1 ex-Europe. As this isn't what you asked and nobody is doing so I don't have to worry. :)
Can moderators just block anyone with ROK in theire name?
This is stupid.
No sane people by that shit.
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ŠKODA Motorsport has pulled the covers off its brand-new WRC2 challenger - the Fabia RS Rally2.
https://www.wrc.com/en/news/2022/wrc...bia-rs-rally2/
I'm sure Mikkelsen and Lindholm will be driving it on event soon, but it would be nice to see the other two test drivers (Meeke and Kopecky) given a WRC entry or two in it as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fast Eddie WRC
Strange there was no mention anywhere at the reveal or from the journalists reports about Toksport when they are the 'factory-blessed' Skoda team.
You were right. Kajto won Safari without much trouble (and without many opponents) and is now the new leader of WRC2.Quote:
Originally Posted by Danny0405
Current standings:
https://www.wrc.com/en/results-stand...son-2022/wrc2/
Kajto looking to be in a good position to considering only competed in 3 events this season and leading that championship with most following having done 4. Would need to refresh myself on how WRC2 scoring is worked out though to know how big an advantage that is.
Sami Pajari has revealed his further two outings in WRC2 - Rally Finland (4 - 7 August) and RallyRACC - Rally de España (20 - 23 October). The 20-year-old Finnish driver is going to drive Skoda Fabia Rally2:
https://www.wrc.com/en/news/2022/wrc...e-wrc2-drives/
Hayden Paddon says that his return is a bigger challenge than he initially thought. In Rally Lepaja it was hard for him to even get into top 3:
https://www.fiaerc.com/erc/news/erc/...or-wrc-return/
Well not a definitive one but clearly, he has a big advantage compared with all of his competitors right now: he has the right to make one bad result if he is doing 7 events; he will be in Estonia and apparently skipped Finland; so theoretically, we should see him in Belgium, Greece and Spain.Quote:
Originally Posted by hutchie
However, he is a little slower than most of his competitors so if a Mikkelsen does 3x wins to end the season, Andreas will win the championship.
Being consistent could be enough for Kajto but it will depend if a competitor crushes all for the rest of the season (and also the number of retirements above him in the rallies he will compete because being 5th for example is not really a good result).
Not a big surprise to me that it is not that simple, it looks a lot like Atkinson’s comeback; and personally, I didn’t think we could see him that high for his 2 first European outings. Let’s see what he can do in Estonia and Finland (but competition will also be higher)Quote:
Originally Posted by Jarek Z
Some updates on both WRC-2 and WRC-3 (mainly Junior as WRC-3 alone is not an important championship) after Estonia:
- great drive by Mikkelsen to take back the lead with a sensational Power Stage; Suninen was close before PS but I think Mikkelsen was managing for this one considering the length of the last day; good fight anyway. It was essential to achieve this kind of result for the championship.
- another nightmare result for Bulacia (the older one) with a costly mistake whereas his rally was good. Complete nightmare season for him (and for Toksport championship team even if it doesn’t matter really)
- Lindholm, great 1st day, much more average after that but he is in the game for WRC-2 Junior championship; Huttunen average drive in spite of the evolutions of the car
- Kajto, difficult to do better than this, he loses the lead in the championship but with one rally less; not a big result but it could still be useful if some competitors have issues later on. However, as evoked before, winning or losing the championship is more in his competitors’ hands than in his hands; he is not in the game to match the RC2 top 5 so he will depend on the mistakes of the others.
Championship situation should be clearer after Belgium (all main competitors should be at 5 rounds) and even more after Greece.
In WRC-3 Junior, big fight before the double-count last round in Greece (even if I must admit I’m not a huge fan of all these count-pointing tricks which fakes a bit the true nature of the championship in some cases with the double-counting last round, the 4-out-of rule this year + the point-stage win which is a bit less annoying):
Current standing is:
Pajari 85 (77 with worst result excluded)
Armstrong 85 (68)
Virves 84 (76)
Joona 79 (66)
Pajari won but Virves was incredibly fast (he even did a 11th time in SS23, tying his own best from Croatia and Portugal even if best RC3 WRC stage finish is Pajari 8th in Croatia for the moment).
So basically, Greece will be a winner-take-all (ok, not exactly true with the stage points).
Pajari is probably the front-runner for Greece but on technical gravel, Armstrong is able to match; and Virves is able of everything.
More complicated for Joona on the other hand, he sounds a bit lower in terms of speed (only 6 stage wins in the season against 21-26 range for the 3 other guys) and should hardly be in the game except if all the other 3 are making mistakes or having issues (and even winning the rallye could be not enough for him depending on the stage wins). But in that type of championship and in a rough rallye like Acropolis, who knows.
Still skeptical about Franceschi’s decision to withdraw (except if he had a deal to postpone his prize for next year for him or his brother), he could have been in the game in this situation by just staying steady before Greece; as he is doing rallies in France, I suppose it is not totally about injury.
you wrongly calculated the points with worst round excluded.
Possible but it would be better with an explanation:Quote:
Originally Posted by br21
As far as I see (WRC.com)
Pajari is 85 and worst result is 8 (Croatia) so he has 77 points with the 3 best results
Armstrong is 85 and worst result is 17 (Croatia) so it is 68 based on 3 best results so far
Virves is 84 and worst result is 8 (Sweden) so it is 76
Joona is 79 and worst result is 13 (Estonia) so it is 66
And annex VIII 3.1.3 of 2022 Sporting regulation is saying that only the 4 best results will be taken into account.
Except you meant that this point is excluding not for the lowest number of points but only for the worst rallye ranking but with special stage points still counting even for this rallye (I remember a rule like this existing at one moment but clearly even more messy than it is already; but maybe you’re right with the «*classification results*» term used in the rule):
In that case, yeah, it’s different, it should be
Pajari 85 (0 point excluded as retired in Croatia)
Virves 76 (-8 for 6th in Sweden)
Armstrong 73 (-12 for 4th in Croatia)
Joona 67 (-12 for 4th in Estonia)
Still close game but I agree it is less if it is this
Either Pajari or Joona could win Open and still finish 5th in Junior.
Yep, Armstrong and Virves have 0 open starts.Quote:
Originally Posted by WRCStan
Here's an interesting video of Miko Marczyk's test before Rally Finland 2022, recorded by a camera on his helmet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL1eVobU9Gc
Mads Ostberg helps Miko Marczyk in his preparations for Rally Finland:
https://scontent.fktw1-1.fna.fbcdn.n...0g&oe=62EF389A
Gryazin crashed already on shakedown:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1K6Rd4jUEo
Good win for Hyundai in Suninen in WRC-2 after the late loss in Portugal. And Lindholm gives a good fight to them. Still think it will be complicated for them for the Open title but Lindholm has clearly taken a good option for the Junior title with Gryazin out for both titles after his shakedown mistake.
Also Pajari interesting for a second WRC RC2 outing before his mistake.
And Hyundai has taken a good option for Team title all the more than TokSportII team result are not good enough to try some tricks (if I’m right, Belgium will be last European round for Toksport 1 team as they were registered in Portugal but made 0).
In WRC-3 Open, Joona has won easily but the situation is a bit more complicated to understand: the WRC regulation in French is talking about a 5-out-of-6 championship but in English, it is translated in ... 4-out-of-5.
If 4-out-of-5, it should be between Joona and Cerny (as Pajari as already made five rounds) and could be very close call if Cerny wins in Belgium (where he should considering the competition), it could be a tiebreaker in the end with Joona winning in Greece (with no Pajari, Armstrong or Virves in Open) and Cerny in Catalunya.
I don't think either Lindholm or Suninen have a chance for open title, since they are not entered for Ypres and doubt they are going NZ/Japan. This means they will only do 6 rounds.
Anyway seems Hyundai is now competetive on all surfaces (slow/fast gravel and tarmac (see Italy)), which is good.
Regarding team championship, note the terrible season from Bulacia with 5x0.
Has Hyundai won anything in Italy? I don't think so:Quote:
Originally Posted by mknight
https://www.rallylink.it/pdf/classifiche/2022/ciar.pdf
https://www.rallylink.it/pdf/classif...ostruttori.pdf
https://www.rallylink.it/pdf/classifiche/2022/cirt.pdf
Crugnola won Monza last year and Basso has similar times as in Fabia before imo.
Crugnola is fast in what ever he is put in.
Former Formula 1 driver Jos Verstappen makes his WRC debut at 50 years old :)
“It’s a big step, but we really enjoy rallying and we are here to learn. I am 50 but I am still learning a lot” - he says :)
https://www.wrc.com/en/news/2022/wrc...ut-in-belgium/
Mikkelsen says he needs to win WRC2 in Ypres.
“For us to win the championship, I think we have to try and win in Ypres and in Greece - there’s no other choice. [Kajetan] Kajetanowicz is probably going to do Japan and New Zealand, so he could potentially have two easy wins there.
“Our retirements mean that, whatever happens, we will already have one zero score in our total tally. So my goal this week is very simple - we need to win,” he added.
https://www.wrc.com/en/news/2022/wrc...tar-mikkelsen/
And, a win in Ypres will look much better on his CV than some easy wins without competition.
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It will be very difficult for Mikkelsen to past Lefebvre on clear speed here in Ypres. You can say its Lefebvre's home rally, he knows the roads well, car setup must be close to ideal and if tarmac stays dry, i dont see him lose this one. He can lose it only by his mistake or unlucky puncture. But clear speed wise he is the fastest one.
Then a win will look even better.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lead
Take 6,9 on lefebvre!
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