Ypres Rally 2015

[jarauto2]

unofficial top 10 after Ypres:

1 (-) harriswrc 110 +15 126
1 (+1) stalin 109 +17 126
3 (-) Zigz 106 +15 121
3 (+2) Henkie H. 104 +17 121
3 (+8) T.Maanteiden kuningas 93 +28 121
6 (-2) jarauto2 104 +16 120
7 (-) cosmin_sb 100 +18 118
8 (+1) Fiat-131-Abarth 99 +16 115
8 (+15) arko5 85 +30 115
10(-) Vaggelis27 97 +17 114

[tommeke_B]

Photo of one of the most lucky moments I've seen so far this year. This is Euan Thorburn on SS Hollebeke, not so far after the start. Just after the start of the stage you go into a medium left and medium right. Then you go over a crest, and the section of extremely fast corners begins, left-right-left and so on, with some crests between. Then they have a crossroad, then a very fast right into this left corner. I'm sure that (almost) every driver had in their notes not to cut, because there is a driveway in the middle of the corner, which creates a huge edge in the cut. With the helmet on, things are a bit difficult... When you enter the corner, you are just getting in the rythm, and just out of the right corner before, you can't see that particular driveway yet. So your brain will tell you to cut, even when the notes tell you to not do it... Very tricky situation. If Thorburn cutted any deeper he would have ripped his wheel off I think. Hard to understand that the car was still running after such brutal "kick" to all mechanical parts. Moffet crashed in this place in the second run. Also Pieniazek (208, JERC) crashed here in the first loop.

[Luis Pacheco]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmLHYMekxN0

[Ucci]

You praise Romain Dumas for the same reason you devalue Loix' prestation. He climbed up to 4th only after others mistakes and retirements. But of course he did well, very clean driving style compared to Delecour, "Mr. frein tard" was all over the place, really amazing to see. Still there are some differences between the GT3 of Delecour and Dumas I think. The gearbox of Dumas seemed much shorter than anyone else's.

Of course I will praise R.Dumas (in fact everyone who has the courage to go flat with 911 GT3 on rally stage), so don't have hard feelings for my opinion, but I will say following : I can really not compare Loix performance against Dumas, because out of 15-stages which Dumas successfully passed, he was on seven less than a 1sec/km slower that the fastest driver on the stage! Which is, at least for me one hell of success.
Remember words of Snijers that those 911 GT3's which are adapted to RGT rules are much slower than the ''open'' ones....so imagine to have Dumas in the car with around 450-470 HP.....in the dry conditions.....that could lead to a bizarre situation for top R5 drivers....
I hope this will not turn to accusations who has ''balls'' and not.....everyone of us has a personal favourite, so RWD drivers are my heroes....
Again : Loix is a winner, there is nothing to add. Congratulations !

[MartijnS]

We only went yesterday.
Nice day, did 6 stages without having to hurry too much! Last time we went was 5 years ago and we enjoyed it again. Shame about the retirements during the day, but had a nice rally. Didn't do any preperations at all, we were following some friends who did recce the stages on friday!
Big difference in speed between the top 4 drivers (Loix, Breen, Lefebvre and Bouffier) and the others behind them! Enjoyed the R2's especially Zawada in his Opel Adam was pushing! Didn't really like the Porsches in the FIA configuration, not much to see and hear in my opinion, except for Delecour maybe.











As usual more at our Facebook Page or our Website !

[Mirek]

Of course I will praise R.Dumas (in fact everyone who has the courage to go flat with 911 GT3 on rally stage), so don't have hard feelings for my opinion, but I will say following : I can really not compare Loix performance against Dumas, because out of 15-stages which Dumas successfully passed, he was on seven less than a 1sec/km slower that the fastest driver on the stage! Which is, at least for me one hell of success.
Remember words of Snijers that those 911 GT3's which are adapted to RGT rules are much slower than the ''open'' ones....so imagine to have Dumas in the car with around 450-470 HP.....in the dry conditions.....that could lead to a bizarre situation for top R5 drivers....
I hope this will not turn to accusations who has ''balls'' and not.....everyone of us has a personal favourite, so RWD drivers are my heroes....
Again : Loix is a winner, there is nothing to add. Congratulations !

With restrictor Dumas has little less than 400 Hp, he has traction control, very short sequantial gearbox compared to other GT cars and very good suspesnion as well. He was setting nearly same times as Delecour who is around two years younger than black coal (big respect to Delecour for what he is still capable of but the younger drivers simply shall beat him as time can't be stopped). Dumas was 15 seconds ahead after 11 stages when Delecour suffered technical problems. Dumas is full-time professional who did his job very well but he didn't do something totally from the other planet like You portrait it.

Moreover what Your comparison to fastest R5 drivers say? He was one second per kilometer slower and so what? How do we know that it's good or not? Maybe if Abbring drove Porsche he would be faster. Maybe not. We don't know.

By the way forget about Snijers. His car is junk compared to those of Dumas and Delecour. Believe me it is. You can clearly see how bad his engine and suspension is compared to Dumas.

Frankly I would give the CMR Flat out trophy to Abbring. He was the exact example of what the trophy means - to be flat out all the time no matter what. Dumas was driving very efficient, clean, no power slides, no drifts, no moments (at least I didn't see a single one and I saw hot moments from nearly all drivers).

[Mirek]

Before I write about the rally itself I would like to react to all "Loix was just lucky comments". In my opinion it's not fair to downplay his victory. He was the smartest driver in the rally just like last year and that's why he won for the tenth time and why he is the benchmark for everybody coming to Ypres. All his rivals except Princen lost the game by their own mistakes in the direct fight. For me Freddy won fair and square. I heard he said a big truth on Friday - something like "I have nothing more to prove here, it's up to them to prove themselves." That's exactly what it's all about. It's the same like the bashing of Loeb we had here on forum for years of his reigning.

Anyway I would like to point out that Freddy was quite unhappy with the car and dampers on first leg. He also made a wrong tyre choice for the second loop and had two punctures (fortunately for him always at the end of stage). His "wunderwaffe" engineer Yannick Willocx was in Poland on Škoda pre-event testing and arrived only after first leg. I'm sure the change in Freddy's speed and mainly appearance had a lot to do with it (on Friday he didn't look confident at all, on Saturday it was a different story).

[vino_93]

So I was there saturday. I saw three times the ERC field (Reninge 1 & 2, Kemmel 1) and one the ERC historic (Reninge 1).

To be quick about the historics ... boring. 5, 6 good drivers, all the other promenaded.

About the ERC, I agree with Mirek. Loix is really smart. So it's not so impressive, but when you look how far he was cutting ... that's amazing, any other drivers was able to go so far. He was so clean, not pushing like hell, but really efficient.
Breen, Lefebvre and Bouffier didn't have the same style. They were more agressiv, and finally, that's not so surprising to see they had problems.
I was quite surprised with Verschueren drive. Last time I saw him, he was quite slow, not a ease. It seems he is getting better with his DS3 now.
The other after were slower, and more imprecise. I especially thinks about McCormack. He was pushing, trying to take the same trajectories like the top guys. But he couldn't ... every time I saw him, he was on the limit. That was really different from Magalhaes, who was soooo clean and smart ... But at the end, we know it was him who was right compared to his direct opponents.

In the R2 field, that was clear that the Opel boys were much faster than the others. Griebel and Bergkvist drive clean, precise, and fast. Bergkvist astonished me by his trajectories. He was a bit like Loix, cutting the more possible, and being clean.
Zawada was more brutal with the car, more spectacular, a bit like Gago, who was the only JERC Peugeot guys who seems to be at the level of the Opel. (from what I've seen, unfortunately I saw Ingram only once).
I'd like to prise Victorien Heuninck too. Every year he is doing a great job. I hope in the future he can rent a R5

Very happy to see the Porsche. That's a great add to the field of cars !

Quite surprised to see that Erdi won the N group, and beat the R2 ... he seemed slow, and I thought Pyck would have won.
And a small word too for Xavier Lannoo, who was pushing with his DS3 R1. It's rare in Belgium to see a R1 well drived !

So a few of my pics :






More here : http://www.ewrc.cz/ewrc/fotogalery.p...7&fotograf=277

[dimviii]

but when you look how far he was cutting ..

[mousti]

Loix had a bit of luck though, Gitsels clocked one minute too early in. If Bouffier wouldnt have that puncture he would have won

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