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  1. #2201
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    Hi everyone,
    Well, the team is packing up at the end of a really great week here in Finland. I’ve spent lots of it getting used to the TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRC Yaris WRC - playing with the car’s various settings, and learning the differences they all make.
    This was an exploratory test, of course. So while we went in the right direction with some changes, we also went in the wrong direction with others. Each of those decisions was as important as the other, really, because it’s about working out what happens when you do certain things.
    That aside, we racked up plenty of useful kilometres in the Yaris, on a variety of roads, and while I don’t really want to get into comparisons, I’m really pleased with how the car performs. It’s very different from what I’ve been used to, in lots of ways.
    I just want to say thanks to the whole Toyota Gazoo Racing team at this point, though, because another important part of this week has been getting to know the technicians and the engineers. They’ve been so welcoming to me, and the attitude of the whole operation manages to be cool while still being focused. That’s a great place for a driver to be; it gives me such optimism for 2019.
    Hopefully, then, I’ll be back here in Finland before too long, to gain a bit more experience. But in the meantime, I’m heading to Belgium for the Condroz Rally in a couple of weeks’ time. It’s an event I’ve done before, of course, so I know it’s really challenging and there’s usually a top-class field there. So it’s an ideal way for me to get back into competition.
    Thanks, as always, for your support - and thanks again for all the positive feedback to the announcement this week. It was great to see.
    Kris
    https://www.facebook.com/krismeeke

  2. Likes: er88 (19th October 2018),Rally Power (19th October 2018)
  3. #2202
    Senior Member Rally Power's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Simmi View Post
    Maybe it's the case. But Sebastien Loeb Racing has always run different cars - it's not bound by Loeb's own PSA contract. They've run Orecas, Audis, Porsches, McLarens etc
    You’re right, but the Golf was the first car SLR run against a PSA model (308).

    Anyway, having Loeb available will certainly make this silly season even more interesting!
    Rally addict since 1982

  4. #2203
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    Leader of the World Rally Championship (WRC) since his victory in Portugal, in mid-May, the Belgian driver of the Hyundai team Thierry Neuville has seen his successors lose ground. The French Sebastien Ogier is only 7 points behind him, and the Estonian Ott Tänak at 21 points, which means nothing, a win that can earn up to 30 points. Mathematically, Thierry Neuville and his co-driver, Nicolas Gilsoul, can still clinch their first world title Sunday, October 28, at the end of the rally of Spain, penultimate meeting of the season.
    "Such a suspense is a good thing for fans," Thierry Neuville, met in Monaco on October 15, said. Smiling, t-shirt and black jeans expertly patched, the Belgian runner with fine anthracite glasses seems anything but stressed. A relaxation he imputes to his "good nature", which allows him to remain "rather happy" in all circumstances, whether we talk about rivals or his exile in Monaco for tax reasons.

    "My life is the rally," says the young man in his thirties. At 5, I already wanted to be a rally driver. Born 15 km from the circuit of Spa-Francorchamps in the province of Liège, he has not missed any Grand Prix Formula 1, no endurance race. On German television, he follows the exploits of Michael Schumacher in Formula 1; on his PlayStation, he is measured against Colin McRae, world champion in 1995 rallies. But it is at the roadside, during regional rallies, that he vibrates the most: "There are head-to-tail, accidents, it's spectacular! "


    Compromised beginnings
    The school looks bland next to it. Nevertheless, he works what it takes to never redouble, because, "somewhere, it's a year of your life that you lose." As a teenager, he mainly uses his abilities to finance his first rally car. Once acquired, he runs in the competition organized by the RACB (Royal Automobile Club of Belgium, equivalent of the French Federation of motorsport). "We were 120 young and the winner won a rally season in the Belgian national league. Thierry Neuville wins.

    "That's where everything went. With the support of his federation, he finds sponsors and connects the competitions in Belgium and in the international championship (IRC). Before joining the WRC with Citroën Racing, stable of a certain Sebastien Loeb (in 2012, his last year). But he almost never got there.

    In 2011, he started in IRC with an abandonment on the first stage of the opening Rally in Monte Carlo. Peugeot then poses an ultimatum: "If it goes bad in Canada [2nd rally on the calendar], we stop. "Yes, I was scared, admits Thierry Neuville. Afraid that a failure prevents me from going to the next level. In Canada, he finished 3rd to seven seconds behind the winner; in the next race, in Corsica, he wins. Peugeot reassured, the program is sealed.

    With hindsight, Thierry Neuville has learned to rely on fate: "When it does not work, do not ask questions, go straight and continue. With the unfailing support since his debut of his manager, Geoffroy Theunis, and while not counting his hours. Physically, the pilot trains forty-five minutes to two hours each day, usually in hotel gyms, "easier to access when traveling 240 days a year".

    For the piloting part, the braking technique is refined on the circuit, the simulators remaining unsuitable for rallies that are too complex to model, with their 350km timed divided into twenty or so special stages over three days.

    "An instinctive sport"
    Hence a certainty: "The rally is above all an instinctive sport. We can not really prepare it. In these conditions, the experience - already eleven years in professional - plays a lot. "Just see the reflection of a puddle to see if it will slide or not. "

    On-board cameras, however, have become important support tools. "Before [2014], it took a morning to assess how fast you could pass a bump. From where a saving of precious time. And the possibility for Thierry Neuville to spot before the rally of Spain the places where it was fast and those "where I made myself heat".


    Behind the driver points the businessman, who assumes to be domiciled in Monaco since the end of 2013 for tax reasons: "We have a very short profession. In 2012 [when it was decided], I did not know if it would last. And that lasts, "he says, his eyes laughing. It was however in Belgium that he decided to invest for "after", in order to create a car rental company.

    If he declares himself "proud to wear the colors of [his] country", his relationship with the notoriety remains complex. He therefore seeks the right distance between coldness and excess of familiarity, while "keeping a part of mystery". Does he just admit that his father was a truck driver, his mother employed "in offices", that his brother preferred not to pursue a rally to take care of their common "affair" and that he had a half-brother of "12 or 14 years old".

    He has also just obtained his helicopter pilot's license, a passion he shares with Sébastien Loeb. Thierry Neuville roll he in the footsteps of the nine-time champion of the Alsatian world? He sweeps a pirouette: "" Thierry, you always had everything you wanted ", always told me my mother. There I miss only the title of world champion. In Spain, he may have the opportunity not to disavow it.
    https://www.lemonde.fr/auto-moto/art...5_1616662.html

  5. Likes: MentalParadox (21st October 2018),Rally Power (21st October 2018)
  6. #2204
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    Remember this fact : not easy but possible ! Neuville is the only one driver could be #WRC Champion in @RallyRACC if ..... explications ► http://bit.ly/2y5mDe6

  7. #2205
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  8. #2206
    Senior Member AnttiL's Avatar
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    So much for photoshopping and fake news...

    Meeke's early running in the Toyota was shrouded in speculation of a testing crash. Makinen confirmed that had happened, and laughed off social media rumours that a picture had been faked to show the car off the road.

    Makinen added: "The picture was not a joke. It was some very, very small mistake.

    "It was in a long corner which came more narrow and the speed was completely zero. There was no damage to the car, it was just on its side.

    "Honestly, it was completely harmless. I'm not bothered about that at all.

    "The guys, they can push it back and carry on. It was no drama."
    https://www.autosport.com/wrc/news/1...tely-different

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  10. #2207
    Senior Member Fast Eddie WRC's Avatar
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    #M-SPORTER

  11. #2208
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    Bruno Famin will be live on Facebook on the official site of Peugeot Sport today at the 17:45 CET. I wonder what he will tell to the world.
    Last edited by deephouse; 24th October 2018 at 17:30.

  12. #2209
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    Quote Originally Posted by deephouse View Post
    Bruno Famin will be live on Facebook on the official site of Peugeot Sport today at the 17:45 CET. I wonder what he will tell to the world.
    maybe they will enter the vacuum cleaner championship
    Juha Kankkunen: "The speed was o.K., but the corner was to tight"
    Marcus Grönholm: "... tell corrado .... three gears are enough..! "

  13. #2210
    Senior Member Rallyper's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fast Eddie WRC View Post
    This was so expected and at the same time not. Bcs now in a new team we hoped for less "crashes".

    The explanation I now read, maybe tells the true story, but anyway I don´t think the start of Kris career at Toyota started that well we were expecting...

    Having said that I´m the first one to hope him go lucky in 2019.

    (Written at 18.20 CET)
    "Reis vas pät pat kaar vas kut"
    Tommi Mäkinen, back in the years...

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