Rally Mexico 2018

**Ucci** · 11th March 2018, 20:39

Some thoughts over this weekend: the star Nb.1 by far Mr.Loeb ! He took away all the attention alreday before the start, but with every stage even his biggest enemies realized, that ''the devil ate the joke''. Nobody expected the he will lead the rally! Period! All attemps from other occasional guests driving new gen.WRC cars were-said gently-unnoticed. The change from former gen is way to big and therefore difficult.....but not for Mr.Perfect. I'm 100% sure, that the permanent WRC drivers will have some sleepless nights until Corsica.
Ok, enough praise for Loeb.
Seb Ogier surprised totally (look at the pickems), even himself. He used the same approach as many times: attacked where all others sufferd problems, drove some advantage & control it. Simple as white bread.....Good to see him back on the first position in the WRC ranking. He deserves it. And even took some points on PS.
Dani Sordo- very good result, he must be excited. This is going to be a huge pressure for his teammate Paddon.
Meeke-his face at the award ceremony tells all. He fuc#&* up the whole event; was very lucky even to finish it.
Mikkelsen-was he driving?? Completely unnoticed, loosing time....I expected much more from him.
Neuville-event to forget. Troubles, every day cleaning the road (welcome in club, Thierry); at the end the 6th place is more than expected after such a terrible event for him.
Toyota boys: even worse performance than 2017. I would expect from village boys to learn something from last year, but they skipped this lesson.
Ok, move to Europa & tarmac.

**BigWorm** · 11th March 2018, 20:40

Drivers of the rally were both Sebs and Sordo for me, the Sebastiens were at their own best while Sordo showed some rare proper pace. Hard to tell where Tänak would have ended since he essentially missed the whole second leg but for the two out of three legs he could drive he was very good, so he'll get a positive grade from me.

Meeke got a podium but he could've won, and probably should've, and can only blame himself for not doing so, car was good as well as his pace but ultimately his mistakes were too many. Same old.

**macebig** · 11th March 2018, 20:42

Nice win for Ford. Evans and Teemu should step up their game. Another catastrophic event for Toyota. Things looked great for them after Monte, but now with a tarmac event following, they may fall back in the Constructors. Loeb was really competitive. Hats off to the guy. Meeke always flirts with self destruction. Sordo was good. Neuville was killed by the starting order and a few issues. Mikkelsen was unanimous. But that was not necessarily bad. CU at Tour de Corse.

**Tarmop** · 11th March 2018, 20:47

Latvala did well in Corsica so unless some unforeseen technical issues, it`s all about the drivers.
They have nowhere to fall anymore, as they are last.

**macebig** · 11th March 2018, 20:55

Originally Posted by Tarmop

Latvala did well in Corsica so unless some unforeseen technical issues, it`s all about the drivers.
They have nowhere to fall anymore, as they are last.

I can't see anyone of the Toyota trio being legitimately faster than Ogier/Meeke/Loeb/Neuville and probably Sordo/Mikkelsen on dry tarmac. Of course, things may change due to weather/luck.

**N.O.T** · 11th March 2018, 21:05

It was a nice rally ruined by far too many silly mistakes, reliability problems and punctures that lead to a boring 1,5 day.

Now 1 month until the next one but surely the championship is very very interesting this year...

so what you are going to do during this month to satisfy your autism (don't call the FBI please) forum members ? I am going to count how many minutes the month has...

**A FONDO** · 11th March 2018, 21:08

Originally Posted by N.O.T

It was a nice rally ruined by far too many silly mistakes, reliability problems and punctures that lead to a boring 1,5 day.

Now 1 month until the next one but surely the championship is very very interesting this year...

so what you are going to do during this month to satisfy your autism (don't call the FBI please) forum members ? I am going to count how many minutes the month has...

http://www.easysurf.cc/monthtable.htm

what next?

**EstWRC** · 11th March 2018, 21:10

Totally agree with NOT. Would have been amazing rallly and big fight without these punctures and technical problems.

But that’s rallying.

Mikkelsen the most disappointing for me.

Maestro performed exactly like I expected. Maybe took a little more time to settle in

**steve.mandzij** · 11th March 2018, 21:18

Originally Posted by EstWRC

Totally agree with NOT. Would have been amazing rallly and big fight without these punctures and technical problems.

But that’s rallying.

Mikkelsen the most disappointing for me.

Maestro performed exactly like I expected. Maybe took a little more time to settle in

Mikkelsen is a huge mystery. He's playing it very safely so far this season and it's working well for him.