Vodafone Rally de Portugal 2015

[AL14]

Ogier only has 3 titles... he needs another 6 to be even.

I doubt VW will stay in the sport that long and i doubt that someone will not close the gap or emerge...

patience is a virtue.

Let's see, hope you're right, we need some tight fights for titles.

[stefanvv]

this is very general speaking you are talking,but here we dont speak generally about respect,but respect for a reason.
And Ogier doesnt deserve respect for a particular reason,as you saw, even inside his homeland compared to Loeb from his copatriots.

Yes You're right, for this reason I rest my case.

no he dont talk too much about rules,he talks too much about rules only when he dont win.
When he was pushing Loeb when he was cleaning all gravel rallies for years,he didn t spoke about rules at all.
Why?

Probably he had different things on his mind back then, I couldn't know.

trying to find excuses about silly Ogiers behaviour doesnt help.

I don't try anything. And Ogier doesn't need that to continue to take away the titles.

[stefanvv]

Great gallery http://jree.ee/gallery/wrc-portugal/

Amazing effect on some of those photos. Probably never seen anything like that.

[stefanvv]

And anyway, looking at current "rising stars", Ogier finishing his career with bigger numbers than Loeb is not far from possible...

No worries. Even if the numbers become bigger, he will never beat actual world champion. So this is always what he will miss in his career. (wow, I already predicted the future in this forum threads)

[Lundefaret]

Amazing effect on some of those photos. Probably never seen anything like that.

VERY good photographer. Clever use of natural and artificial light, and some cool tilt shift photography. Very impressive

[Lundefaret]

Kris Meeke is a positive trend in an otherwise very predictable sport.

Watched the WC Rally Cross race from Lydden Hill, and it was real excitement. Its very seldom these days that You get the same in the WRC. Last time was with Loeb in Monte Carlo.

Ogier is one step ahead, and it all comes down to how much he will loose with his starting position.

Volkswagen is one step ahead, so the amount Ogier looses on his starting position reflects in the finishing order of the VW`s.

Thierry Neuville is out of order, and thats a pity. He has a natural ability to go fast, but it seems he doesnt know how or why, so it only comes to him when every planet allign in the right order. He tries to much, and this is what increases risk and decreases speed.

Mads Østberg have been a little dissapointing, tough he has also struggled with technical gremlins. He has problems getting the car dialed in to the first SS, and spends a lot of his rallies doing work that should have been finished on testing. He is a very quick driver, but only when lucky with the set up. And I think he gets very stressed when he has a faster team mate.

Andreas Mikkelsen I cant really get my head around. In my opinion I think he is the quickest driver out there, when he knows the road and grip levels. But introduce changing grip levels and pace notes, and he seems to struggle a bit. ANd he also is a high risk braker, which catches him out from time to time. He is a driver where everything can just fall in to place, and then he will win rallies, (I have seen this happen, and then he is just incredible) but I think both he and the team dont know exactly what needs to fall in place to make that happen,, so he can be kept struggeling.

Jari Matti is the same driver now as he has been for a long time. High speed, high risk. Incredible to watch when he lets it all hang out, and he gets to the finish (he have had some extremely good drives in Sweden for instance), but will never be World Champion with some one like Ogier in the series.

Dani Sordo is on and off as usual. Give him a car he thinks is a little to understeered and he will impress. But a long way from the top of the rostrum.

The Ford guys can fight among the best of the rest, and Ott has some incredible bursts of speed from time to time, but high risk, so difficult to net a win.

In the final in RallycrossRX at Lydden Hill Petter Solberg won JUST in front of Mathias Ekstrøm, after a very close race, and it was exciting. Cant really say the same about WRC these days, and thats a pity.

[AndyRAC]

I think you're saying that it's fairly predictable? Which explains why apart from in here, there is little interest in the WRC ( as far as UK goes). I'm sure thats not the case elsewhere.

[dodge33cymru]

In the final in RallycrossRX at Lydden Hill Petter Solberg won JUST in front of Mathias Ekstrøm, after a very close race, and it was exciting. Cant really say the same about WRC these days, and thats a pity.

Yes, because it takes place over 10-20km, as opposed to 350km; it's a cheap, manufactured excitement for an attention-deficient audience, in my opinion. If every WRC event was just held on the Shakedown stage it would be equally close, but not very exciting.

WRC events used to be won by minutes, just like Le Mans used to be win by laps. Now, both frequently cone down to a matter of seconds, yet still people want manufactured drama. The irony being that manufacturing drama doesn't work, because it becomes normal, and what used to be dramatic becomes less so, so something more extreme must be done; look at NASCAR's predicament.

WRC is attempting to manufacture drama in some ways, by messing with the road order constantly (which has arguably backfired on them three times already), but by and large it allows the best to win still, which means that the drama that does take place is actually dramatic; see Sweden this year, for an example.

The excitement I derive from this sport is watching skilful people pilot a car down a narrow, tree-lined ribbon of track with potentially disastrous consequences, each trying to do it quicker than anyone else, for whom they have no visual reference (unlike rallycross, where you can 'manage' a lead).

Sorry, a bit of a rant there. I agree with your analysis of the drivers though.

[GigiGalliNo1]

VERY good photographer. Clever use of natural and artificial light, and some cool tilt shift photography. Very impressive

Tilt shift!

[tommeke_B]

Jaanus Ree is a great photographer indeed, you can recognize him because he's carrying half a studio with him on the stages. Completely different level than anyone else who is photographing in WRC. No offense to anyone but I don't like the recent photos of for example Lavadinho (@World), where the editing is very obvious and looks very cheap and quick. For those who like Jaanus Ree's photos, it's worth to check his other galleries too: http://jree.ee/galleries/