The Fiesta has always been a great car on tarmac...last year Ogier won Monte and was second in Corsica, Tänak won Germany and in spain Ogier and Tänak were 2nd and 3rd. This year Ogier has won Monte and Corsica.
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Ummm, Paddon was 4th in Finland...Best Ford 5th. Not the slowest car fs.
Latvala is dreadful this rally. Plain admitting he's not quick enough.
Suninen had very good splits for first half. Better than Sordo and Lappi.
Neuville has a 20 odd point advantage in the championship to think about. He has to produce a thinking man's drive - he can't do what Ott is doing and drive flat out to win every remaining event. Ogier has to beat Neuville in every remaining event yet there's only 7seconds between Thierry and Seb. Neuville isn't off the pace, he's where he needs to be.
As for Sordo, he just isn't on the level of the top 3 drivers (even on tarmac anymore imo), but is still fighting for 4th. Yes the Hyundai isn't perfect on tarmac but it's almost like some people are trying to convince themselves that the i20 is bad here.
Well, the lack of kilometres didn`t...
BUT
At the moment we have three manuf. in Top 3. They are followed a bit further down again by 4 manuf. fighting in 3 seconds. It`s not only about the cars, mostly i`d say drivers. Probably without Tänak we`d be talking also about the lack of pace from Toyota cars.
Sure Neuville doesn't need to risk. But before rally he said he expects to fight for win.
Sordo won 5 stages here last year and it's with typically one of his 2 best rallies (with Spain). Now he is behind Evans and Lappi.
Mikkelsen was mentioned more than enough, 2nd last year in C3. Fighting with Ogier for win in VW in 2016 (there was just the review on alllive between stages).
So either all 3 suddenly got worse in germany, or maybe the car performance also has a bit to say ;)
Well, when one loses 7.7 seconds to the first one and 5.4 to his teammate in a 10km stage, mostly made for driving flat out, then i´d say it`s quite hard to blame the car...unless it`s broken.
lol, i just said to you that Ogier won in Monte and Corsica this year and is second atm
Last year on exactly same stage in the dry (first run) it was Hyundai 1+2 and Mikkelsen in C3 4th.
This year it's Hyundai 3+4/5 and Mikkelsen 10th.
Surely Mikkelsen drives the same car slower than his teammates, that's not the argument. Argument is that Hyundai is slower here than last year compared to other cars. Which is surprising.
Ott got 200km/h on the straight
the driving is over now... only mistakes will change things.
If Tanak wins it will be pleasing to Neuville.
Better he finishes 3rd to Ogier in 2nd... only a 3 pts drop not 7 pts (like 1st - 2nd)
Mikkelsen seems found some speed.
Latvala also with much better speed in the afternoon
Looks like Tanak is untouchable and Neuville is happy with 3rd. Pretty much everything solved.
The top speed is more about the gear ratios than engine power.
Suninen great splits gain, lets see if he keeps it on the road.
The display with revs/gears/brake/throttle is in-car telemetry and should give good results as long as all wheels are on the surface and not spinning (typical on tarmac). All the other displays are based on GPS which won't give good results under many conditions.
Mikkelsen suddenly faster than Neuville trying a new driving style
everybody seems to be going better than in the morning against the TOP3