Rallye du Valais 2014

[Mirek]

You must be joking Mirek. Do you remamber season 2003 in ERC? Bruno Thiry was fighting head to head against Miguel Campos and:

Thiry - competed in 10 rallies, finished 8 (in all rallies he was 1st or 2nd overal), just 2 technical problems in the whole season, became champion

Campos - competed in 11 rallies, finished 8, only 1 technical problem in the whole season, 2nd in the championship, Campos also had a record of over 50 finished rallies in a row, I think it was between 2002 and 2004

Now look at the 208 T16 of Breen and Abbring, the 207 S2000 of Consani or the Fiesta R5 of Kajto...

Since January 2009 till October 2014 there have been 3 mechanical-related retirements of factory Škodas. In 6 full seasons with several championships run in the same time, sometimes with 3-4 cars on the start. The very first mechanical-related retirement came in August 2012, that is after almost 4 years. This is for sure the all-time record of any team in rallying. Also for example BRR managed to run Fabias for several years without a single retirement caused by technical problem (I think 3 years or so till it happened for the first time).

As I said R5 have problem with the rules forcing stock components in them but the S2000/WRC/RRC formula allows to build an extremely reliable cars. See VW or Citroën WRC cars. Those also break only very rarely.

It's hard to comment about privateers because You never know how they maintain the car. If they do all service according to the plan, if they use proper parts etc. but the factory teams show what is possible. None of the teams in the past could have done whole season without a retirement caused by mechanical failure.

You can not make a statistic out of two drivers in one season. They were not the only ones competing. Besides that this record is nothing extraordinary. Lappi had no technical problem in the whole 2014 season. Shall I make statistic out of him?