WRC ADAC Deutschland Rallye 2018

[EstWRC]

Ogier just 0.3s off Tanak... the Fiesta's speed looks pretty good now.

Evans also showing it even with old aero.

The Fiesta has always been a great car on tarmac...last year Ogier won Monte and was second in Corsica, Tänak won Germany and in spain Ogier and Tänak were 2nd and 3rd. This year Ogier has won Monte and Corsica.

[Tarmop]

Ummm, Paddon was 4th in Finland...Best Ford 5th. Not the slowest car fs.

[mknight]

The Fiesta has always been a great car on tarmac...last year Ogier won Monte and was second in Corsica, Tänak won Germany and in spain Ogier and Tänak were 2nd and 3rd. This year Ogier has won Monte and Corsica.

Yes, but Evans didn't do very well in Corsica.

[steve.mandzij]

Latvala is dreadful this rally. Plain admitting he's not quick enough.

[mknight]

Suninen had very good splits for first half. Better than Sordo and Lappi.

[Eric]

Ummm, Paddon was 4th in Finland...Best Ford 5th. Not the slowest car fs.

Paddons starting position helped him a lot there.

[er88]

Last year at this point Hyundai won 2 out of 5 normal stages with 1 win for Neuville and 1 for Sordo.
They are not doing very bad this year atm, but not very good either.

Neuville has a 20 odd point advantage in the championship to think about. He has to produce a thinking man's drive - he can't do what Ott is doing and drive flat out to win every remaining event. Ogier has to beat Neuville in every remaining event yet there's only 7seconds between Thierry and Seb. Neuville isn't off the pace, he's where he needs to be.

As for Sordo, he just isn't on the level of the top 3 drivers (even on tarmac anymore imo), but is still fighting for 4th. Yes the Hyundai isn't perfect on tarmac but it's almost like some people are trying to convince themselves that the i20 is bad here.

[Tarmop]

Paddons starting position helped him a lot there.

Well, the lack of kilometres didn`t...

BUT
At the moment we have three manuf. in Top 3. They are followed a bit further down again by 4 manuf. fighting in 3 seconds. It`s not only about the cars, mostly i`d say drivers. Probably without Tänak we`d be talking also about the lack of pace from Toyota cars.

[mknight]

Neuville has a 20 odd point advantage in the championship to think about. He has to produce a thinking man's drive - he can't do what Ott is doing and drive flat out to win every remaining event. Ogier has to beat Neuville in every remaining event yet there's only 7seconds between Thierry and Seb. Neuville isn't off the pace, he's where he needs to be.

As for Sordo, he just isn't on the level of the top 3 drivers (even on tarmac anymore imo), but is still fighting for 4th. Yes the Hyundai isn't perfect on tarmac but it's almost like some people are trying to convince themselves that the i20 is bad here.

Sure Neuville doesn't need to risk. But before rally he said he expects to fight for win.

Sordo won 5 stages here last year and it's with typically one of his 2 best rallies (with Spain). Now he is behind Evans and Lappi.

Mikkelsen was mentioned more than enough, 2nd last year in C3. Fighting with Ogier for win in VW in 2016 (there was just the review on alllive between stages).

So either all 3 suddenly got worse in germany, or maybe the car performance also has a bit to say

[Tarmop]

Well, when one loses 7.7 seconds to the first one and 5.4 to his teammate in a 10km stage, mostly made for driving flat out, then i´d say it`s quite hard to blame the car...unless it`s broken.