https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E2ejjx1X...jpg&name=large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E2ejjx1X...jpg&name=large
Printable View
Suninen "automatically" in WRC2... hmmm
Anyway WRC2 has the typical "overseas" event problem. With 4 entries and one of them Prokop, just cruising will guarantee 2 or 3rd spot and 18 to 22 points (3-4 points from Powerstage), while fighting between Suninen and Mikkelsen might lead to 0.
Zasada won European Championship 3 times in the sixties and seventies. It was before World Rally Championship for drivers was created. It's unbelievable that he wants to compete in Safari Rally again. Great respect for him!
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pr...TcN6Tlq5QJi-CA
....and first time in 1966 with a group 2 Steyr Puch 650TR.
Attachment 2108
http://www.zasada.pl/sobieslaw-zasada
http://www.kwa-kwa.pl/strona/zagrani...liminacja.html
http://www.kwa-kwa.pl/strona/images/...19-366x252.jpg
1963 Rally of The 1000 Lakes :)
http://www.zasada.pl/system/images/1...jpg?1422123959
A history lesson for all of you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cijgGcx8Bi8
Zasada says that he's not going to Kenya for holiday :)
https://www.fiaerc.com/why-rally-ret...legend-zasada/
Zasada's car from 1997 Safari is shown at Mercedes Benz dealer showroom in Cracow. Do you think cars are going to look similar this year?
https://www.facebook.com/KronikaRajd...0717368311514/
https://storage.googleapis.com/downl...7061&alt=media
Bulletin 1
11.11 Permitted bodywork amendments
With reference to the 2021 FIA ISC, Appendix J - Article 261; The organisers will permit;
• Additional opening on the bonnet or on a front fender
• Front impact protection
Are those WRC2/3 tyres same type as Portugal/Sardinia was used ?
-Don't quite get what the "opening" is for? It's not like it's warmer than Sardinia or Turkey, maybe a bit more humidity.
-Not sure how eager teams will be to mount massive bars to the front as it will have big impacts on balance
Don't see why WRC2/3 tires should be different.
Note that in Sardinia afaik the only one out of the top 4 WRC2 (Hutunnen, Østbeg, Bulacia, Fourmaux, and Gryazin + Mikkelsen but they drove only a few stage) with a puncture was Østberg on one stage. That's hardly any drama.
In Portugal afaik it was Østberg and Suninen with one each, Lappi, Solberg, Bulacia etc. didn't have any.
Historically R5s get a lot of punctures though, in Turkey it's usually at least one each.
From the little of what I have seen of Safari stages the problem is typically huge bumps/terrain on the road. Not necessarily big stones.
That would make sense, but doesn't it then need to allow "a pipe" or something, not just "an opening".
M-Sport boss optimistic about the Safari...
https://www.the-star.co.ke/sports/20...-safari-roads/
Was looking on some of the recce onboards from the organizers, (listed under maps: https://www.rally-maps.com/Safari-Ra...nboard%20Video ) and also on some vids from previous year.
The power stage is kind of normal stage similar to a mix of Portugal and Sardinia.
Didn't watch all stages, but there are some other stages that I really wonder about:
- SS2/5 is narrow "in the jungle", slow and almost completely on grass, often with no road visible (2:20+, 26:40+), How are the first cars going to pick a line? How will the road look after first pass or even after a few cars?
- SS3/6 or 8/11 have a lot of really longs "straights" which are not perfectly straight and have lots of hidden bumps/ruts here and there. Really wonder what kind of speed will they try to drive, lot of that looks like you "could" go flat out, but that might end in huge crash.
- 9/12 has kind of mix of all, open straights/wide sections, parts on open grass areas where basically any car can drive completely own line (is it faster to follow tracks of others? Does it get slippery from mud?) and parts that are so narrow and with big height differences that anything about 50 km/h smells disaster
Quite a large part of the rally is "mud/earth" and not "gravel" which afaik is now not seen anywhere in WRC, Azores surface is maybe closest.
Really wonder how teams approach the setup and drivers their style of driving.
High rideheight/soft car? Doesn't always seem necessary. Long gearbox? - will it help if you can't go flat out on the straights without breaking something and have a lot of very slow sections? Etc. etc.
No doubt, it's going to be interesting!
Yeh I've also been watching the recce videos.
The Sunday stages seem more like "normal rallying" with actual roads and bends on it, also partly dense junction turns and straights almost like Ypres. Power stage is probably the fastest of the whole rally. The Sunday single-run stage is probably the most technical stage of the rally (and also my favourite). Friday and Saturday is more Rally raid offroading, with frequent surface changes from roads to tracks. You might have a long straight but there's places where you need to brake because the road is so bumpy. Some sections are super fast, some seem like slow based on how the recce jeep is going over them. Only a couple of river crossings. Very few tight corners or technical sections (although sometimes they've made deliberate detours or additional corner tightenings as chicanes). And most of the roads are super narrow, only one car width.
At least it's very different, completely different to anything on any other rallies of the current WRC. Some sections are a bit like the worst roads of Sardegna, and some are a bit like Turkey, but the character is so different (slow because of road bumpiness, not because of tight corners).
There's plenty of wild animals on the stages, sometimes running quickly across the road, sometimes in herds moving slowly. Will we just get a lot of notional times for slowing down because of animals? And I presume we will see a lot of animals being hit by the cars, will they show all that on All Live? Front bumpers will be necessary because of that, otherwise they could get radiator damage.
Also worth remembering that the videos were shot months ago, and the organizers supposedly worked on the stages, and the Equator rally was driven also on some of the stages after the videos, in torrential rain. The WRC event should be dry, however.
Are there any stages that look like this?
https://overdrive.com.pl/wp-content/...1-1024x576.jpg
Yeah, like here in Safari 2000 at 0:15 sec, poor Juha is apologizing his mechanics :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1dawGiMEzM
No.
I am not so sure about the animals issue. The local drivers in Fabia R5s run them without any extra front protection.
But an interesting point that lately drivers "demand" to get time back for just about anything, partly also due to the small time differences at finish which again is also related to the short distances rallies run over. This might be an issue here where all kinds of dust/catching other drivers/blocked stages/animals can happen.
Then again I'd expect time differences to be much bigger here.
COC Communication
https://storage.googleapis.com/downl...7127&alt=media
It really still has different elements than any other WRC Rally
Interesting!
Prokop only WRC2 driver in Kenya :D Mikkelsen-Bulacia won't start because of car damage from Italy..(I rather bet on money-wise) and Suninen won't start, because M-Sport can't afford another members to go there + quarantine rules..
It all sounds like being about money (both Suninen and Toksport). Toksport can't get a hold of a Fabia anywhere? I think I hear that one of the cars that Mikkelsen drove is even owned by Skoda motorsport and in Sardinia they ran 5 cars? Bulacias car with panel damage can't be fixed in 3 weeks? ( I guess they use different cars in Poland).
Suninen sounds like a reaction to his Sardinia crash. Specifically since Prokop goes anyway.
Anyway better that "nobody" goes, rather than "competition" with 2 cars.
Valid point that was raised is that current rules require the teams to enter one round outside of Europe. So this means "everyone" has to go to Japan. It's not quite clear to me if this rule applies only to team championship or also to drivers.
The line in the rule-book stating everyone must do an event outside Europe can quickly be changed if the right people are going to push for it. Especially considering the calendar has been changed and Chili is replaced by Acropolis.
Yeah like last year with the numbers of events.
https://www.the-star.co.ke/sports/20...or-wrc-safari/ Oliver Solberg for Safari Rally Kenya
Since I guess the car is already on the way, Will he run the weird hybrid spec Loubet has been using whole season, or will they manage to change?
Also while Loubet had terrible Croatia and Portugal, in Sardinia he had car issues every second stage, so kinda hard "thank you".
Together with the Subaru rumors it almost seem that Hyundai is suddenly trying hard to please Solberg?
(After missing Croatia for seemingly no reason, new Rally2 car delayed and likely not very happy with the old R5)
PL Loubet:
After discussions with my partners after Sardinia, we decided to ignore the Safari Rally and take the time to analyze what has gone wrong since the start of the season.
All for the sole purpose of coming back stronger.
For Loubet, he was placed in a WRCar too early, and need more time in Rally2.
Too early to say if Oliver takes the level, at least on asphalt, and maybe also on gravel. But he has many hours in a RX Supercar, so amount of power is known to his brain, so muscle memory is there. But he needs more hours in the car. Maybe Petter should look into possibility of getting a training car for them!
Last year at Rally Alba Loubet was posting similar times relative to Tanak like Solberg did this year.
Just saying
Find it strange how people already discard Loubet.