[ERC] Rally Liep?ja 2014 (31.1.-1.2. 2014)

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Originally Posted by mm1

I don't mind that they are spending their own money, just would love to see a higher level of competition.
You see the gaps, don't you?

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I will play a bit of devil's advocate but for many of those drivers the snow/gravel conditions are very unusual. For Nordic drivers it might be easy like to walk but for drivers from asphalt countries it's different thing. For example Tarabus is 37 years old now but he never drove on these 15" tyres except Rally Norway 6 years a go and that is his only experience on Nordic winter stages. In Czech republic we have largely no snow this winter and also almost all roads here are asphalt ones so You can not practice here. He isn't a works drivers and he can not afford to crash the car on every unfamiliar rally only to find where the edge is to be faster next time. He also openly admits his driving is far from being fast.

But the same applies often when You guys from Baltic or Scandinavia come on asphalt :) I remember first asphalt event of Hänninen here with Škoda in 2009. He was pretty slow even compared to top national drivers. Kruuda or Plangi had a hard time here on Barum too.

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Originally Posted by HarriK

We did 4 stages (1,2,3 and6) + one mid day service and last service of day...

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Thanks Harri!

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Originally Posted by bluuford

Remember.. last year Kubica took many Christmas trees from the Finish forests with the same car.. nothing hapened..

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Exactly, Kubica's Citroen survived something like that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhTVjMBdad8
so Bouffier must have been extremely unlucky to be stopped by such a small mistake.

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Originally Posted by Mirek

I will play a bit of devil's advocate but for many of those drivers the snow/gravel conditions are very unusual. For Nordic drivers it might be easy like to walk but for drivers from asphalt countries it's different thing. For example Tarabus is 37 years old now but he never drove on these 15" tyres except Rally Norway 6 years a go and that is his only experience on Nordic winter stages. In Czech republic we have largely no snow this winter and also almost all roads here are asphalt ones so You can not practice here. He isn't a works drivers and he can not afford to crash the car on every unfamiliar rally only to find where the edge is to be faster next time. He also openly admits his driving is far from being fast.

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That is exactly the problem of this sport. Mirek, you shouldn't play a role of devil's advocate, because a typical spectator doesn't care who has what kind of experience on what kind of surface. mm1 is a spectator - he buys a ticket and wants to see the show. If he doesn't get the show, he is disappointed. This is European Championship, so mm1 expects a good level of competition. Look at football. We had European Championship in football in Poland in 2012. Millions of people bought tickets and got the good show. That's why those millions of people still watch football and not rallying.

Our colleague John V makes interviews with drivers in every service stop. It's in Czech but I roughly translated interviews after leg 1. Source is here: http://www.autosport.cz/clanek.php?cl=16064

Esapekka Lappi: "It was good day. We weren't lucky in choosing the start position yesterday, we should have gone at the end not at the start. We lost some time with that but now we set the best time so it was good. We didn't mind the darkness. It's good we took the lead but it's not over yet, one more long day to come. It will be more equal tomorrow. The car was working perfectly, we enjoyed it and except the deep snow we had no problem."

Vasilij Gryazin: "There was a lot of gravel on the last two stages and I didn't cope with that very well but I think we did maximum we could today. The result is sure very good and I'm very satisfied. Sure, Lappi will be faster than me tomorrow, I have to be realistic. About the gearbox, I think we will change it now in the evening."

Craig Breen: „The problem was we had the car set for gravel so it didn't work good in deep snow but we need to fight with that. We already tried some changes. For tomorrow we will slightly change differential and suspension settings. Tomorrow we will hardly come up with something, we must simply go flat out all the time."

Sepp Wiegand: „The end of the day was finally all right. The road was much cleaner and it was much easier. I enjoyed driving more. I hope we won't have same problem with starting position tomorrow. I don't like to drive again in deep snow without a chance for improvement. We need to reach finish but in the same time I believe we will go fast enough."

Kajetan Kajetanowicz: „We are very satisfied how it all went today. We didn't do a single mistake and we were fast. It wasn't easy because we have no experience with conditions like this. I'm really happy we were able to fight with the European vice-champion Breen. The main thing is that we gained a lot of experience today."

Janis Vorobjovs: „The last two stages weren't easy because we had to go fast to keep with others but I managed to keep a speed I wanted. Now we'll take a rest and tomorrow we'll go fast again."

Jaroslav Orsák: „The last two stages were great, I enjoyed them. The setup isn't ideal yet but it was much better now as we had much more grip. We will change it a bit more and I hope in a good direction. The times were better now and hopefully it wasn't that terrible like in the morning. It's only our second start with this car so we have to learn but it's getting better."

Jaromír Tarabus: „The end of day was more on gravel, it was still snowy but the grip was better. We enjoyed a lot the penultimate stage which we managed great but on the last one we had several big moments and after one half we lost studs. Probably the driving was too aggressive, we also went off and lost some seconds there. The end of day therefore wasn't very good and honestly we did well only in one stage today. It was a real school today though. We could not do anything about the starting position and tomorrow it won't be much better I guess, let's see. From time to time we change something on the setup but Roman (Kresta - team boss) told us just to push so we try."

Jan ?erný: „The end of day wasn't bad but it could have been better. I started the last stage in a full attack mode and it was too much because in the half I had no studs. We shall have calmed it down and the time could have been twenty seconds better. Moreover we destroyed the tyres. Tomorrow we need to start like this morning but it's difficult because it must be smooth, not too aggressive. On the other hand it can not be too slow, You have to find the right speed. There was a lot of snow on third stage and I have never experienced that so I didn't do well there. In the second pass it was much better although with worse tyres. It gave us a lesson how to drive in these conditions. We are leading juniors so we are really happy."

Steve Rokland: „After stage five we were just sliding. We lost all studs on the last stage and it took a lot of time for us. But for tomorrow we have good tyres left so we'll see how we will do. We'll try to fight."

Petter Kristiansen: „We had a big moment on the last stage but luckily we escaped. The studs had a hard time but we still have some for tomorrow. We have broken exhaust, I cut one corner too much and hit it. I have to drive by head tomorrow but the stages are shorter and on some it will be possible to use used tyres but sure it will be difficult. After the second stage of today where we lost a lot of time we changed the tyre pressure and it was better. We'll see tomorrow but if we shall somehow specially save the tyres it would cost us too much time. It's not easy."

I see some drivers had problems with gone studs after half a stage on full attack, it is learning experience I guess in such Rallies.

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Originally Posted by Mirek

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Originally Posted by mm1

I don't mind that they are spending their own money, just would love to see a higher level of competition.
You see the gaps, don't you?

---

I will play a bit of devil's advocate but for many of those drivers the snow/gravel conditions are very unusual. For Nordic drivers it might be easy like to walk but for drivers from asphalt countries it's different thing. For example Tarabus is 37 years old now but he never drove on these 15" tyres except Rally Norway 6 years a go and that is his only experience on Nordic winter stages. In Czech republic we have largely no snow this winter and also almost all roads here are asphalt ones so You can not practice here. He isn't a works drivers and he can not afford to crash the car on every unfamiliar rally only to find where the edge is to be faster next time. He also openly admits his driving is far from being fast.

But the same applies often when You guys from Baltic or Scandinavia come on asphalt :) I remember first asphalt event of Hänninen here with Škoda in 2009. He was pretty slow even compared to top national drivers. Kruuda or Plangi had a hard time here on Barum too.

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Originally Posted by HarriK

We did 4 stages (1,2,3 and6) + one mid day service and last service of day...

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Thanks Harri!

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Well, guys. I have to say that the stages today was more like Rally Finland. Having said that sitting at home looking at a PC. But with gravel and winter tyres you just have to drive like it was summer and hard gravel roads. That´s my comment on todays stages which in my view wasn´t so hard to tackle.

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Originally Posted by Jarek Z

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Originally Posted by Mirek

I will play a bit of devil's advocate but for many of those drivers the snow/gravel conditions are very unusual. For Nordic drivers it might be easy like to walk but for drivers from asphalt countries it's different thing. For example Tarabus is 37 years old now but he never drove on these 15" tyres except Rally Norway 6 years a go and that is his only experience on Nordic winter stages. In Czech republic we have largely no snow this winter and also almost all roads here are asphalt ones so You can not practice here. He isn't a works drivers and he can not afford to crash the car on every unfamiliar rally only to find where the edge is to be faster next time. He also openly admits his driving is far from being fast.

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That is exactly the problem of this sport. Mirek, you shouldn't play a role of devil's advocate, because a typical spectator doesn't care who has what kind of experience on what kind of surface. mm1 is a spectator - he buys a ticket and wants to see the show. If he doesn't get the show, he is disappointed. This is European Championship, so mm1 expects a good level of competition. Look at football. We had European Championship in football in Poland in 2012. Millions of people bought tickets and got the good show. That's why those millions of people still watch football and not rallying.

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Thats the problem, I'm not a spectator, not in the usual sense of word, I'm a few times Latvian champion, and I know this wasn't good enough, but you can think what you want!

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Originally Posted by mm1

I'm a few times Latvian champion

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Allow me a wild guess. Matiss Mezaks ? :)

We must take into account that Gryazin was with 4 gears today mostly, so tomorrow might be a fight for the victory. The surprise of the Rally :)

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Originally Posted by Jarek Z

That is exactly the problem of this sport. Mirek, you shouldn't play a role of devil's advocate, because a typical spectator doesn't care who has what kind of experience on what kind of surface. mm1 is a spectator - he buys a ticket and wants to see the show. If he doesn't get the show, he is disappointed. This is European Championship, so mm1 expects a good level of competition. Look at football. We had European Championship in football in Poland in 2012. Millions of people bought tickets and got the good show. That's why those millions of people still watch football and not rallying.

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I don't agree with You. Even when You speak about football world championship the majority of teams play very terrible game compared to several top ones. I would not compare this at all because I have also watched quite a lot of terrible matches involving the best teams. It's simply something different.

You can compare ERC with WRC. The level of WRC competitors is higher than the level of ERC ones but that one is still higher than the one of WRC supporter championships. That's how it is. The second league is never better than the first league. Even in football.

Now I'm at ss7 start line. Still no sunshine in a hour. First ones need extra lights maybe.
No snow has come at night.
I have fever, but have to go!

Interesting thing now - Plangi is running much later than he shall according to the start list but on the other hand it helped him to win the stage! Maybe it was intentional tactics from him?

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Originally Posted by Mirek

Interesting thing now - Plangi is running much later than he shall according to the start list but on the other hand it helped him to win the stage! Maybe it was intentional tactics from him?

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How this was his choice?

I have no idea if it was his choice or not.

Oh, I see:
Unfortunately Plangi was 16-minutes late at TC6F and has been excluded for being over maximum lateness - Clerk of Course Decision No. 6

Thanks, now I see it too. Pity then :(

very very dissapointing rallye for people in first starting positions....there is absolutly no reason to push, look at Neubauer for example, he is fighting there for PC points, but he is first PC driver on the road and he is fighting against guys starting 20 min(!!!!) after him, they have much cleaner road and better knowlege....it is useless and i am sure this is the last time for him to burn his money for such an event... ;(

Such things sometimes happen. Hänninen lost victory in Jänner in 2012 for exactly the same reason when there was a lot of fresh snow overnight...

EDIT: Lappi back in the lead but again just by few seconds. Great battle!

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Originally Posted by Mirek

Such things sometimes happen. Hänninen lost victory in Jänner in 2012 for exactly the same reason when there was a lot of fresh snow overnight...

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juho was on wrong tires! and the guys he was fighting where right behind him...2/4 and 6 minutes...and not half an hour...

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Originally Posted by WRC1

juho was on wrong tires! and the guys he was fighting where right behind him...2/4 and 6 minutes...and not half an hour...

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No, he was on wrong tyres only in first loop. I speak about second leg ;) But you are right his competitors were just behind him. Here it's a matter of rules where only priority drivers start reversed...

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Originally Posted by stefanvv

Oh, I see:
Unfortunately Plangi was 16-minutes late at TC6F and has been excluded for being over maximum lateness - Clerk of Course Decision No. 6

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Reason of being late : They just set the alarm clock at the wrong time to wake them up in the morning...

Positively surprised by the speed of Gryazin who seems to be pushing 110%, but there's no question who's controlling the rally. It would have been nice to have Mr Bouffier in the game a little bit longer and see what the psychological impact of great Monte success has been to him. Maybe he got a little bit too excited yesterday...

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Originally Posted by WRC1

very very dissapointing rallye for people in first starting positions....there is absolutly no reason to push, look at Neubauer for example, he is fighting there for PC points, but he is first PC driver on the road and he is fighting against guys starting 20 min(!!!!) after him, they have much cleaner road and better knowlege....it is useless and i am sure this is the last time for him to burn his money for such an event... ;(

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Good statement. The same is probably true of drivers like Tarabus, Consani, S. Tempestini and some others. Don´t think we will see them at Liepaja again.

Even Kajto seems to fight with conditions/tyres etc. - i´d rate him faster in other conditions.

Steve Rokland crashed out of fight for JERC...

Tarabus off road, Tamrazov stopped too.

Tarabus listed as out

Small comfort for him: he didn´t loose much this time.

wow, Lappi :eek: , waiting for a onboard from that stage :)

With a spin :)

I guess Lappi has this one in the bag now.

I agree with RallyTalent, it's a great shame about Bouffier. I hope he and chicken-man are charged by stage mileage.

Yep lappi took too late brake to this stage 18km left junction. Lost 5sec in that.
One mitsu also out at 2,2km.

Plenty of crashes, offs and problems in this stage. Now also Lefevbre out with a fire of his car :(

For Tarabus it was broken top suspension mounting point.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.n...94129850_n.jpg

And by the way ?erný smashed Immonen in SS9 by a crazy time!

Live NEWS, latest CRASH PHOTOS from Rally Liep?ja http://www.go4speed.lv/lv/news/erc/3025 ... y-liepaja/

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Originally Posted by Mirek

I don't agree with You. Even when You speak about football world championship the majority of teams play very terrible game compared to several top ones.

I don't agree with you. I haven't seen a game where the best team wins 11-0 with another team. And 11 minutes is the difference between Lappi and Consani now. Nobody in European Championship in football plays such terrible game as Consani :)

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You can compare ERC with WRC. The level of WRC competitors is higher than the level of ERC ones but that one is still higher than the one of WRC supporter championships. That's how it is. The second league is never better than the first league. Even in football.

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Of course the second league can be better than the first league! Can't you see that the level of European Championship in football is higher than in the World Cup? All the best teams come from Europe!

And the same should be possible in rallying. All the best teams, manufacturers and drivers come from Europe too. But of course it will never happen.

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Originally Posted by mm1

Thats the problem, I'm not a spectator, not in the usual sense of word, I'm a few times Latvian champion, and I know this wasn't good enough, but you can think what you want!

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I suspected that you were someone else than a typical spectator, because your comments sounded professional. I used your example to present a spectator's point of view though. I hope you don't mind :)

Orsák out, engine

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Originally Posted by Mirek

Orsák out, engine

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That´s bad - he was the fastest of midfield-S2000-drivers of yesterday and did a good race the more the longer the rally - maybe he could have even reached top ten.

Gryazhin with only four gears now. Breen without working rear-axle releasing clutch for handbrake.

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Originally Posted by Mirek

Gryazhin with only four gears now. Breen without working rear-axle releasing clutch for handbrake.

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When you consider all Gryazin's gearbox problems it's amazing that he is still in a comfortable second position!
Pity for Orsak!

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Originally Posted by Mirek

Gryazhin with only four gears now.

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I understood that he only have fourth, not four :) really hoping they can get it sorted out and reach that deserved podium :)