Quote Originally Posted by mknight View Post
As he says in GB and Australia he should be able to fight for the win, with road sweeping mostly important in Australia.

But Spain is the key, he will likely still sweep the road on friday and unless a miracle happens with the new parts coming before Spain he won't have a chance on tarmac.
He can hope that Loeb will take the win (helped by road position on Friday) and take the 25 points from Ogier/Tanak.
sweeping is not THAT important... he won from the front in Sardegnia and was leading in turkey after the sweeping stages... if he wants to be champion he must learn to win from the front.. Loeb did it all the time.

starting from the front is more of an excuse than a real reason to lose a rally apart from some rare cases.

plus running first or 2nd is not a huge difference... roads start to clear after 4-5 cars.