Vodafone Rally de Portugal 2014

[dimviii]

^^^^^^^^

Tom Cave
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13TJj4Shh2s

[Hasselhoax]

Let's see if someone pulls off a Rautenbach/Wilson on the next stage

[dimviii]

new photos at borl
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bestofrallylive/

[Lundefaret]

Explanations regarding my last post to the "non believers":

To stefanvv:
Sordo: The question is, how can a driver be complaining about anything if he wins stages against Ogier? Instead of thinking that "this car understeers way to much", maybe he should be thinking "you actually have to have this amount of understeer to have enough rear end grip to ensure enough aceleration out of the corners"

Neuville: You have to look at Neuville before and after the second part of the last season as two different drivers. Suddenly he started unlocking the code. The question is, has he enough understanding of the code/"Nose End First" to develop him self even further in a team that also develops a totaly new car?
Citroën has a car that is "ready made" to drive this driving style, therefore he would be perfect in a Citroën now, not earlier.

Hirvonen: To much energy in the wrong places equals excesive tire ware, higher risks, and slower speed. If you look at Hirvonens offs they are directly related to his driving style.
Could Hirvonen be faster? Yes, sure, but he then needs to adjust his driving style acordingly.

Tanak: His speed is highly impressive, but his risk management is not. In rallying even your pace note strategy has to be of the kind that premits the codriver to do small mistakes whitout the end result being an off. You have to understand the risks, and manage those in a way that ensures you getting al the way to the finnish in every rally.
Tanaks own explanations is highly illogical: He "blames it" on his codriver making a mistake, and then defends the codriver since he has so little experience.
If the codriver has so little experience that you yourself understand why he can make those kind of mistake, you should have managed this risk with a better pace note strategy in the first place.

Latvala: His "progress" from last year is that he is not trying to win each corner of each rally, but he is taking it slower. If going slower is progress, then I have a different view of progress than you.
If you messured distance traveled by each driver on each rally, and messured the average speed in corolation to the distance, Latvala would probably be the fastest. But his driving style would not be the smartest.

Citroën replicating Loeb: If you have a driver that have won the WRC championship nine times in a row, you atleast should try to replicate that particular strategy when a new driver is taking over the role as team leader. The results in Citroën "post Loeb" and "post Ogier" shows that to much of the knowledge rested with these to drivers, beqause the results show that they werent able to replicate it.
You find the same situation in Volkswagen. Without Ogier the team would be just "one of the others", and we actually would have a real fight for the championship. The only problem is: We have ONE driver that actually knows a little bit (not as much as Loeb) about what is needed to win WRC rallies.

Mikkelsen a mystery? There is no more mistery than the fact that he has the speed, but not the understanding of two things:
1) Where the speed comes from.
2) How to manage the risks involved.

"Rallying is chess at 200 km/h": What I am trying to explain with this quote is:
- Rallying needs a lot of brain power.
- Rallying is a lot about chosing the right strategy at the right time.
- Rallying is a lot abut risk management.
- Rallying is about "outsmarting" not only your competitors, but also the stages, etc.
- But in contrast to chess, in rallying you only have one competitor: yourselves.

The black book: This is a common phrase used mostly in The States, and in American movies, symbolising important secrets that is handed down from one man to another. For example about how to pick up girls.
Loeb handed a lot of his "secrets" down to Ogier, in exhange of Ogier letting him win his eight championship. When Loeb decided to drive yet another year, it all famously went to pieces, and Citroën lost its new star to Volkswagen the year after.
And yes, The Laws Of Physics are Universal, even for Ogier.

You say: "I don't thing the other drivers can do much about it, its just the way it is."
Well, they cant do much about it when they dont know what to look for and where to look.

Driving styles: Loeb vs Ogier
Was Loeb cleaner? Yes
Did Loeb have more tools in his toolbox? Yes
Did Loeb have an even higher understanding of the "secret" of "Nose End First": Yes.
Is Ogier more stereothypical: Yes
Is it the same general driving style: Yes
Look at it this way: Both Loeb and Ogier speaks the same language, but Ogier with a different prenaunsiation and a smaller vocabulary.
But this is difficut to understand if you dont know what to look for:
Tip:To identify this you have to look for the similarities, not the differences.

To lewalcindor: You are right in your understanding of my quote "rallying is like chess in 200 km/h". Rallying is risk management and strategy at high speed, requiring a lot of brain power.

To litifeta: You say watching the inboards of Hirvonen that you dont find a single momemt he could have gained an extra thenth: Does that mean that it is impossible to drive faster than Mikko Hirvonen (lets say if you put Ogier in the same car with the same set up, would he drive at the excact same speed), or does it mean that you dont know what to look for? When I watch inboards of Hirvonen I see A LOT of places he coud have gained extra thenths and lowered his risk, AND saved his tires.

To N.O.T: "i think every driver has a couple of lucky moments in every rally...it is impossible to try and be fast without close moments through 300kms for special stages."
Are you really sure about this? If we say that each rally is about 300 km in lenght, and each season has about 15 rallyies, that would be about 4500 km. If we multiply that with 9, we have 40.500 km. And then we can add testing etc. We maybe end up with something like 70.000 km or more. (its probably a lot more)
If we say that an average road car driver drives about 15.000 km a year, we then have about 5 years of driving.
If we then reflect on the amount of times Loeb went of the road during his 9 WRC Championships. You would then find that Loebs risk was no higher than that of a regular car driver driving the same amount of km on regular roads. And that is going at it at close to maximum speed on the tuffest surfaces in the world trying win championships.
This surely proves that it has to be another way to win rallies and championships than taking high risks?

Rallying is risk management and strategy at 200 km/h, and there is only one person in the current championship that has read the game rules. I bet he sleeps with a smile on his face. And I beg the other drivers to WAKE UP!

[jonkka]

Try breaking up your posts to a smaller chunks. It's quite a task to read such long one (I did not bother).

[jonkka]

Mikko is doing the wrong thing: Ostberg pushes, so Mikko thinks he has to respond. But he has big enough lead over Ostberg so he could take it easy in order to save tyres to power stage.

[Mise]

Try breaking up your posts to a smaller chunks. It's quite a task to read such long one (I did not bother).

I did. Lot's of good points on the post. Try read in smaller chunks Jonkka

[litifeta]

Good to see Mikko and Mads on the podium.

[Eli]

Good to see Mikko and Mads on the podium.

shhshh don't jynx it!!!

[dimviii]

Gilbert after crash with a car of organisation of rally Portugal