WRC Rally Mexico 2019

[doubled1978]

G

About penalty for Evans. The rule says that you have to run the PS "in a given order" so TC penalties don't matter since he started in correct order.

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Interesting points from the rally:

- starting to look like driver championship will be two man fight. Question is how C3 does in the events where it kind of struggled last year (Arg, Por, Sard, Turkey etc...). Neuville can't keep up if he can't fight on tarmac and has to write-off Finland beforehand.
(then again last year after Corsica it looked like we will have Ogier domination)

- Toyota (both Tanak and others), just didn't seem to have the extra speed it has showed in last 6 months or so. Did others catch up or was it just Mexico altitude? I am thinking altitude, Toyota could have "fixed" overheating the way other teams were rumored to do in 2017 => by just turning down the power

- Meeke as a reliable point scorer that can't regularly fight in top (both overall and stagetimes) is something totally new.

- there are 3 drivers that have had really bad season start. Funnily enough there is one from each team: Suninen, Latvala, Lappi and Mikkelsen.
Suninen had top3 speed in Sweden, ok speed in monte, crashed in each rally, 2x in first stage
Latvala had top3 speed in Sweden, quite bad in Monte and slowest Toyota, also mostly slowest Toyota here, 1x out on his own, 1x technical
Lappi ok ish speed in Monte, very good speed in Sweden, not very fast here. Small crash in Monte (then technical), massive luck in Sweden, luck here as well on Friday (hitting the tree mid-car saved him) then crash with "small" mistake
Mikkelsen fighting in top 3 on all rallies (though in Sweden it was mostly due to being stable), crash in Monte, puncture-related retirement here

I agree on Ogier, let’s see how they go on events that have not suited the C3 previously. They may well have made it competitive, or at least better and with him at the wheel that might be enough.

Toyota, I thought the same thing about turning the power down a little in the name of cooling here in Mexico.
On Meeke, in my opinion it’s not can’t do the stage times, it’s more he is choosing purposely not to in the name of scoring points both for him and the team. When he has decided to, the speed has been there alright. PS on Monte and Mexico, first stage on Saturday when he took the lead here. If we think he and Latvala are in a straight fight to hold onto a seat at Toyota for next season, he’s doing the right job so far.

Suninen.
I agree, seems to be trying a little too hard to show he is fast. Hopefully it’s just a blip and he will turn it around and show he is.

Latvala.
Same as history, when he doesn’t lead the team he struggles, starts to question everything he does. You can almost see him trying to compose himself at stage end interviews to not sound desperate. Shame as I really want him to do well.

Lappi.
Yep agree.

Mikkelsen.
Bit unlucky, Monte crash was silly but others have got away with similar. Otherwise has done a good job this season I reckon. Decent speed in Sweden, fast in Mexico.

I’ll add Evans.
After bad crash in Monte (we haven’t talked about it much but that could have been a terrible accident) he has got to good solid results after and is back scoring good points.