2008 Neste Oil Rally Finland - official thread

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Originally Posted by jparker

And what's your point? Loeb is the best driver? That's fine, I don't dispute that. What I'm trying to say is, current WRCars require no other skills then turning steering wheel and braking, and that's less demanding.

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What a load of rubbish. The best drivers of the time will always be the best drivers. If you transported Loeb back to the mid 80's he would definitely be up there with the best at the time.

If driving a WRCar is so easy then why are there people like Rautencrash and Wilson around?

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Originally Posted by Daniel

What a load of rubbish. The best drivers of the time will always be the best drivers. If you transported Loeb back to the mid 80's he would definitely be up there with the best at the time.

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Not sure about that, not at all.

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Originally Posted by janvanvurpa

Yes evolution. But ever since the subset of GpA which allows "World Rally Cars" to be built under much MUCH greater freedom, the cars, from shell to suspension strength, suspension TRAVEL!!! to gearboxes reliability---directly tied to REMOVING from the DRIVER the job of selecting gears---, to engine and especially turbocharger lifespan, the CARS are HUGELY, BIG GIANT STEPS improved over the early 90s Group A cars.

They are essentially purpose built competition cars in EVERY detail now, then they were BASED ON production body shells and with the limitations that comes with that.
Suspension was max about 200mm travel... now at least 275, maybe 300mm
suspension had to be attached to the body within +-15mm. No funny fenders if they weren't made in series for 5000 road cars,

I want to ask when people have such obvious contempt for the achievements of people who they may have never seen, and it goes without saying, doing things that the complainer has never been close to doing:
Have you EVER seen the early 90s ccars driven by WRC drivers?
Ever [i]touched any parts, spent an hour going through the Homologation papers seeing what the parts that make up the car are like?

WAAAAAAAAaaaay back then the stuff was "pretty damn good" and crazy expensive.........Today the CARS are near perfect (hence the less than 2.5% difference in the speed between the amazing Loeb and the depressed, seemingly washed up hang dog Petter Solhberg only 2.5%) and to use the words of SEVERAL men who, unlike you, actually have driven both ;
"The cars are almost perfect--they just about drive themselves now..."

Sainz, McRae, Mäkinen all have said this about the modern World Rally Cars.
And they might possibly know just a bit more than a mere nameless fan.

Another factor is the current regs allows such few cars to qualify, and are so specialised and with the "can't homologate any new stuff" very often that
virtually nobody but 6 guys have top works spec, way beack when TOP works spec ---was NOT THAT FAR AHEAD of what LOTS MORE PEOPLE could scrape together.

And as for Championship, that is SEASON LONG Championship, yeah that's one thing but who cares?
[b]On individual events there were lots of people fighting for top 25 places in cars MUCH NEARER in terms of speed THE CAR WAS CAPABLE OF.

Thus it was harder then beating 12-15-20 near equal cars than just beating 2.

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All of which is fine and dandy gramps. But Loeb is still the best of the drivers out here at the moment. He put guys like McRae, Tommi, Sainz and co in the shade and none of them ever had a bad thing to say about him and his skill level. Perhaps the nameless fan is you? :laugh:

I agree that the cars are different but the fundamentals of car control haven't changed all that much. If it were all so easy any twit with a few million dollars/pounds/euros off the street would be in the WRC and competing for victories. Funny thing is that it seems to be a lesser number of guys who can actually truly master WRCars and win rallies.

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Originally Posted by Daniel

I agree that the cars are different but the fundamentals of car control haven't changed all that much

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True, but who does that control? Most of that control is taken away from drivers and given to high tech devices, so you are testing the machine, not the driver.

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Originally Posted by ste898

NOT if you cannot understand how it so so much easier to win these events now then you have a serious problem!!!!!

Events in 2000's 17-25 stages!!! Easy cars to drive (just about drive themselves)

Events in 80's and 90's anywhere between 35-55 stages 5 days and nights
no power steering and driver aids etc etc etc!!!!!!1

Get a grip man.....

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Come on ste 898, I remember rallies from too long ago, and the modern rallies are all 100% commitment all the way, I was in Dalby on old RAC in 1988 on the last day and most of the field was in cruise to the finish mode. That does not happen any more. Surely we dont have 36 hours out of bed and drive around endurance rallies any more, nowadays its 3 days flat out commitment.

According to many peoples logic....why is it that we have so few guys who can antagonise Loeb since the car became eaier to drive? and drive by themselves shouldn't that mean that more drivers would be competitive ????????????????

What a load of BS is going on here!!! Get real, this guy (Loeb) has broken all the records (remember, that in the beginning he was beating all the "great" drivers too). Good machinery + top talent + little bit of luck as well end you get this result. I do not think, that even Bosse could've stop him this time. Like Mikko said in the interviews, that they were going much faster than previous years (look at stage times + tyre disadvantage). And this back in the old days thing is hopless crying - every era has had some bright talents, but not as bright as this one!

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Originally Posted by Daniel

If driving a WRCar is so easy then why are there people like Rautencrash and Wilson around?

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Cause they can afford to? Getting to drive a WRC car has got nothing to do with talent when a single rally with a rather new car costs about 200 000 € (like Rantanen´s drive in this year´s NORF).

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Originally Posted by gloomyDAY

1) WRC and F1 are mutually exclusive sports. Why are you even mentioning what happened in Hungary as a parallel example of what happened in Finland? Pretty silly.

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Silly you!

I didn't mention it in relation to NORF. I mentioned it as an example that most fans expect Loeb to win on tarmac events to come - and todays crap F1 race in Hungary was a fine example that sometimes things goes in the exact opposite way. One of the slowest guys won, and the fast ones lost out.

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Originally Posted by Miika

Cause they can afford to? Getting to drive a WRC car has got nothing to do with talent when a single rally with a rather new car costs about 200 000 € (like Rantanen´s drive in this year´s NORF).

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What about Rautencrash? Why is he not winning? He has the money!