Catalunya 2011

[Mintexmemory]

WHY HAS lOEB SLOWED?

Tyre strategy possibly?

[bluuford]

Loeb is first on the road and this is the worst place to be during the second run. No dust problem for the following cars as well

[Langdale Forest]

Loeb is first on the road and this is the worst place to be during the second run. No dust problem for the following cars as well

why the road has been swept?

[Mintexmemory]

meeke is 1 minute behind Hirvonen...he is not that fast.

Ford will have optimised their set -up for gravel knowing that this is Hirvonens best chance to gain an advantage. I suspect that while Latvala will show pace on tarmac he will be slower than the Citroens and Hirvonen will be slower than the Minis. We shall see, but after the first stage tomorrow we will have a clearer idea

[N.O.T]

or he doesn't want to risk too much especially with the tarmac stages of tommorow following....Latvala cannot drive that fast without following the Brake marks of the guys in front.

[N.O.T]

Ford will have optimised their set -up for gravel knowing that this is Hirvonens best chance to gain an advantage. I suspect that while Latvala will show pace on tarmac he will be slower than the Citroens and Hirvonen will be slower than the Minis. We shall see, but after the first stage tomorrow we will have a clearer idea

i think for meeke 1 minute is too much....especially when his first goal will be to stay on the road and not push like hell.

[dimviii]

the difference is too big...almost 1 sec/km faster this year...so either they extended the tarmac section or something else happened....or they managed to find 1 sec/km from Germany until here...because in germany the times in 2010 were better than 2011.

Agree Greg,just for reference.There are 2 other stages that are same as last year,tarmac ones that we will see tomorow

[N.O.T]

Loeb through split 1 marginally faster than this morning.....

[bluuford]

why the road has been swept?

During the first run the road is covered by thick layer of gravel. It will be swept by 5-6 cars and cars behind those are slower anyway. At the end of pack, there are 2wd cars that use different line and bring thin layer of gravel back on the 4WD line. So, during the next run this thin layer will be problem only for the first car.

[dimviii]

You are drawing a mistaken conclusion; they may be but they are both catching the dust of the guy in front so its less that 2 minutes of clear air in terms of visibility. They will also be on compromise settings to quickly convert for tarmac

Dust is only for Minis?
Why compromise settings,the others why they didn t compromise? Excuses....