[WRC] Neste Rally Finland 26 - 29 July 2018

[dimviii]

https://www.ewrc.cz/foto/44262-neste...land-2018/305/

[stefanvv]

https://www.ewrc.cz/foto/44262-neste...land-2018/305/

Uh, nice

[dimviii]

C.O.R video
https://youtu.be/O-qX3LtaevM

[dimviii]

maxicorde pierre video
https://youtu.be/TJlZOS3YQA8

the downhill spot with the 2-3 jumps is amazing.

[dimviii]

986/5000
Having finished the Finnish Rally with the victory of the Toyota Gazoo Racing driver, the Estonian Ott Tänak; the organization of the same has issued a statement in which they report that the Belgian Thierry Neuville has been fined and must pay a total of 4,000 euros.

The reason for the sanction was to have used a mobile phone while driving on the link section in the direction of the TC-20 exit. After having seen the commissioners of the test a video in which they prove these facts, the decision of them has been to fine with an economic sanction to the pilot.

The Belgian will be forced to pay the amount of 2,000 euros, after having breached Art. 12.7 of the FIA ​​sports regulations; while the other 2,000 euros will be applied in suspension of the sentence and the payment will be made immediately if the pilot commits a new infraction of Art. 20.3.4, in any of the remaining tests that participate this season.

http://revistascratch.com/wrc/notici...medium=twitter

[spiderem]

great rally... summer break is finally over and i think we got what we were waiting for. Obviously well done to Tanak and Toyota. Mads quite amazing i have to say, hope the new citroen geometry will be good on all surface.

Now regarding team orders... lots of debate here. Personally i don't blame M-Sport. Malcom is running a business at the end of the day, and he has stakeholders to answer to. So without impacting the manu points, he can help his lead driver, then by all means. It keeps the championship alive and exciting. As few comments mentionned, it's not like evans has been amazing this year, and Suninen was not even fighting for a podium.

Question: what was Ogier's feeling at the end with the new aero and dampers? His thoughts were very mitigated on Saturday night. Curious to see what package they will bring to germany. But i am excited to see the fiesta with the new aero on tarmac config, i think it will look bonkers

[JUF]

Despite the heat a very, very enjoyable event. Congrats to Ott/Martin and the whole Toyota team. I will write a longer report of our experiences at the stages when I'm back home.

[Raymonhuisjes]

Video online!

https://youtu.be/v_nsjbNhQsw

[tommeke_B]

Back home from another great event! 5th Rally Finland for me (after '12, '14, '16 and '17). Never seen so many spectators! Things were a bit different to other years, with more dust and more ruts shaping due to the extreme dry weather and more use of narrow roads.











A few more: https://www.facebook.com/pg/rallyima...21483374530201

[mknight]

My opinions:

Rally as a whole
Sadly some of the narrow roads were not much fun to watch online as they were so narrow that the cars were driving on rails. I understand it's not easy to pick up the route but in some cases I'd rather see typical Finish roads with chicanes rather than extremely narrow roads.

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Teams
Citroen - very good with both cars being able to set top times. Strange fuel issue on Friday evening cost Breen possible 5-6 place. (cause he'd also get better starting position)
Toyota - I wrote before that anything but 2 cars on podium is a bad and they delivered. Not surprisingly they were dominant to the point of boring. Off course it's not much surprise given all 3 of their drivers like these stages and the unlimited testing they can do on the same stages as well. Just hope we are not heading into 2014-2015 VW style dominance.
Hyundai - overall quite bad, not really unexpected after last year. That said Paddon (only car with very good road position whole weekend) did show good speed and finished well and Neuville was somehow surprisingly fast on PS. (last 1/4 of the stage from him was pretty crazy though)
Msport - I rank them as worst of the rally, last year Evans and Sunninen were fighting with Toyotas, these year they were clearly behind both Toyota and Citroen and not much faster than Hyundai (if at all given the road position differences). The gamble with new parts for Ogier also didn't pay off and it might take them a while to find the right setup for the rest of the car now. (like it did for Hyundai after their 2018 aero updates).

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Drivers
Good
Østberg - For me he is the driver of the rally as it was pretty much unexpected. The most surprising part for me was that he stayed on top for all 3 days and not just Friday as he usually does.
Tanak - Extremely good performance on Friday morning, only reason I rank him behind Østberg is that it was pretty much expected he will do well.
Paddon - Stable and fast just behind Toyotas. Specially the "stable" part is important.
Suninen - fastest Fiesta whole weekend, sure he did have 1 big moment, but last year he had like 5 of those and was still behind Evans.

Neutral:
Latvala - good driver after Friday morning and considering his season so far. But many put him as main favorite and specially the first stage on Friday seemed that he was just too nervous.
Breen - good stages times, but the Friday puncture that cost him a chance for podium was his fault. Unlucky with the fuel issue.
Neuville - obviously suffering from road position whole weekend. Very good push on PS.

Bad:
Mikkelsen - well the Friday off (which was his mistake) cost him the whole rally, with cleaning for 2 days. But the off was his mistake and even before it he was barely ahead of Neuville who was first on road.
Lappi - Slowest Toyota, crash when not under much pressure. But the worst part for me is how he lost some 15s in a stall and then lost 15 more during rest of the stage and said how "win is gone" after one stage....
Evans - Nowhere near last year and slower than Suninen
Ogier - Fighting with setup all weekend and not able to even beat teammates