[WRC] Rally Portugal 2023

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Originally Posted by Rallyest

Maybe think about it for a second What James has been through and what emotions it can bring out for him if Kris decided to go Flat out immediately

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+ Meeke hasn’t been competing for years and we saw couple of guys making mistakes on shakedown

Tänak fastest on second run also, Neuville and Kalle to come though, good time from Katsuta

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Originally Posted by Rallyper

Lappi with some smoke in the car at finish.

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He's done 3 runs now so all must be ok.

I would say Kris was saving tyres. I think this is about article 13-2-5 of the sporting regs, where you get 4 extra 'other compound' tyres if you use that compound for shakedown.

In this case, it's the hards - since they're expecting a dry rally, it makes sense to have as many good hard tyres as possible available. By doing your first run of shakedown on hards, you are allowed 4 more for the rally.

I guess what Kris is referring to by 'stupid rules' is the fact that you are allowed more first-choice tyres (in Rally2 the maximum you can use in total is 26 here in Portugal, so 12x can be hard, 14x must be soft) which wouldn't really be anyone's first choice...

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Originally Posted by ouvreur

I would say Kris was saving tyres. I think this is about article 13-2-5 of the sporting regs, where you get 4 extra 'other compound' tyres if you use that compound for shakedown.

In this case, it's the hards - since they're expecting a dry rally, it makes sense to have as many good hard tyres as possible available. By doing your first run of shakedown on hards, you are allowed 4 more for the rally.

I guess what Kris is referring to by 'stupid rules' is the fact that you are allowed more first-choice tyres (in Rally2 the maximum you can use in total is 26 here in Portugal, so 12x can be hard, 14x must be soft) which wouldn't really be anyone's first choice...

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Rules are different this year. This 4 extra tyres for shakedown is "quite" nonsense when there is new rule that each P2 participant must do shakedown at least once. And as the total number of tyres for the whole event is counted WITH shakedown, it has no sense to destroy the tyres on shakedown and it is better to save them for race. I am saying for longer time - keep the tyres for shakedown out of limit for the race. Then it has sense...

Yeah, that's why many WRC2 drivers opt to do just one run of shakedown, to save the tyres.

And we've seen punctures for Gus, Fourmaux and Zalvidar....
Meeke drove at a snails pace because of the current rules

Mikkelsen, Solberg, Greensmith, Suninen, Fourmaux, Meeke ...

What has been the longest list of ex-WRC-drivers competing in a WRC event but not in the main category?

More interviews including Meeke / Fulton at the end...

https://youtu.be/-vOn9vFteKw

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Originally Posted by AnttiL

Yeah, that's why many WRC2 drivers opt to do just one run of shakedown, to save the tyres.

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Most have done two runs now.