That's brilliant! That dwarfs any F1 race this year does it not?
Printable View
Reading the usual after-event Dirtfish articles I am slightly perplexed by the Katsuta and Fourmaux praise levels.
Yes they did great, I commented on Fourmaux especially during the event for his great approach for this kind of rally and on Katsuta for his development process.
But the reality is that no matter how well they did relative to their experience Katsuta was only faster than Greensmith and Fourmaux on speed and Fourmaux was the slowest WRC (after the deserved penalty).
With "normal" retirement rate this would put them on 5-6th place for Katsuta and 7-8 for Fourmaux.
Again great job here and great approach but just about all WRC rallies are won on speed and not due to retirements of others. Therefore I find it really strange when Dirtfish talk about winning a rally next for Katsuta and making him Toyota factory driver and about making Fourmaux MSport #1 next year.
Rich Millener said if he was running Toyota, he wouldn't look outwith Toyota's current drivers for next years lineup. Either Ogier does a full season, or on the events he doesn't do, just promote Taka to pts scorer.
So clearly he rates Taka, or maybe it says more about what he thinks of Lappi/ Suninen/ Mikkelsen or any other drivers that are available. Which could hint worryingly towards Msport running Fourmaux and Greensmith as two of their 3 drivers for next year (nothing against Fourmaux)
To finish first, first you need to finish. It's neither Takamoto's nor Fourmaux's fault, the i20s decided to show their fragility once again, Elfyn Evans did another silly mistake or Oliver Solberg and Kalle Rovanpera got caught out by inexperience. Both the Frenchman and the Japanese did the best they could, kept it mostly clean and got rewarded for it.
I can't bring myself to agree with the ratings. I'd honestly have given Neuville a 10. He put in an exceptional, uncharacteristically mature drive and fully deserved the victory...
Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk
The source regarding the number of viewers is from 2019 and is most likely the number of people who have the possibility to watch the stream in their country, not the actual viewers.
https://nation.africa/kenya/sports/m...8?view=htmlamp
Tänak only 6?
Also, ridiculous statements from Clark once again why he gave this rating....
Don’t know why I even bothered to read
So you still wondering about Colin's ratings, still relevant? :D
Sent from my GM1913 using Tapatalk
Considering he contains car quality within the ratings, Tänak should be lower
Clarks ratings are always quite amusing.
Evans makes a stupid mistake and still gets 4 points, but on the other hand Sordos and Tänaks cars broke down and they recieve 5 and 6 points.
Maybe it also says what he thinks about Ogier "retirement". He said before he doesn't believe he won't try another title.
Yes in case Ogier does say 8 out of 12 rounds it might be "easiest" to just nominate Katsuta for rest.
Right now Katsuta looks like a decent 4-6 place points score, but compared with Hyundai driver rotation it isn't enough. Just like last year Rovanpera wasn't enough against Sordo/Breen/Loeb. It's only Hyundai reliability that will win Toyota the title this year.
If we assume that MSport car has a decent speed next year I would expect Katsuta getting beaten by Fourmaux on at least half of the events. Even this year he was already faster than him on tarmac in Croatia.
MSport seems to be heading towards Fourmaux+Greensmith in two of the cars quite clearly at the moment. As long as they put Lappi or Mikkelsen in the last car it looks decent (Suninen doesn't seem to have high standings there at the moment). The main worry is that they won't run the 3rd car with a non-paying driver. Question is if Gryazin could be the paying driver, not sure how good economy that would be though.
Anyway I'd still say it's a bit early for any decisions at MSport. Probably first after Ypres there will be some detailed "rumors".
At 47:00 you can see how the rally ended for the legend - the 91-year old Sobieslaw Zasada. He got stuck in a rut behind another Fiesta and then was hit by another car from the back, which destroyed rear suspension in his car. It all happened 3km from the finish line of the last stage. Despite not finishing the last stage, Zasada's co-driver says they will still be classified in the final results:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyaVzWEo--0&t=2820s
The source is.. ekhm questionable, but maybe some of you will see anything more.
I believe the A-pillar was cut by the rescue personnel. There was a Kenya Quest TV reporter who filmed everything from the accident occurring until the evacuation helicopter departed. Watching his video I saw one official carrying 'the jaws of life' towards the car.
Dirtfish on Neuville's suspension failure states Hyundai used refurbished parts that could have hidden damage:
https://youtu.be/flKhgo8es_o
Shouldn´t be a problem if they x-ray all parts. Don´t think they straighten up a bent part and reuse it...
Meaning they certainly could reuse old parts if they fullfill demands.
I think thats bogus. Why would they reuse parts that have a tendency to break every god damn rally?
Neuville rejects suggestion he was too fast on Safari
Jari-Matti Latvala reckoned Neuville pushed too hard last weekend, but Neuville feels his strategy was the right one
https://dirtfish.com/rally/wrc/neuvi...ast-on-safari/
Yes. In 1995, Toyota told me to go to Kenya and stay for five months. I flew there at the beginning of January and did a lot of testing. At the time, we did what we called ‘high-speed’ tests. On the Kenya roads, it was possible to recce everything in a Group A car - so a proper rally car!
I did the recce eight times. That means I did almost 24,000km at rally speed. But Kenya rally speed is a little bit slower than a sprint rally, because the car can not survive.
https://www.wrc.com/en/news/2021/wrc...fari-rally-qa/
Thank you Safari Rally Kenya
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E5Jc150W...jpg&name=large
Rich Millener on How M-Sport battled Rally Kenya from afar:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4EX...FQ&dl_branch=1