ADAC Rallye Deutschland 2003

One week to go until rally Deutschland starts.
I wanted to visit this rally because it's only 400km away from here. It would have been a nice weekend out, but I have to work. Maybe next year.

It will be an exciting event. One reason to watch this rally closely is the debut of the Skoda Fabia WRC.

ADAC Rallye Deutschland 2003
24 July / 27 July

http://files.automotiveforums.com/uploads/281473logo1.jpg

Official site (http://www.rallye-deutschland.de/)
Entry list (http://213.146.160.151/2003/index.php?rubrik=starterliste&auswahl=starterliste&sprache=e)

Top six last year:
1. Sébastien Loeb
2. Richard Burns
3. Marcus Grönholm
4. Colin McRae
5. Bruno Thiry
6. Markko Märtin

I voted for Markko - mainly because 2002 Germany Focus is one of my next projects. And they say the new Focus is a vast improvement over the previous one when it comes to tarmac. We'll see. Hope it turns out to be an exciting event. Will be rather hard to beat Gilles Crazy Eyes Panizzi though.

Loeb. Basta!

:biggrin:

Wow, look at all those votes :eek:

Should be an interesting rally, hopefully Pug have figured out what has been going wrong with the transmissions and we will see something from Marcus or Gilles, I don't expect to see Burnsie leading the Championship after this rally unless he gets a top 3 (optimistically speaking he could win, but what are the odds?).

I think Loeb will be a contender and may well pull it all together, I think of his teammates Carlos is the threat to challenge him, not McRae.

New Skoda, lets see what Didier can show us, I hope we can see some signs of things to come.

Maybe Petter will be able to challenge for a top position, lets hope the Impeza holds up again.

It's been a long month leading up to this rally, lets get back to racing!

EDIT: Some days my spelling sucks:rolleyes:

Aw man, this one is just too hard to pick. Except for Loix, all of the above guys could win it. Duval could be a dark horse too.

I'd like to see Marcus Gronholm take his first tarmac win and pass Burns in the points. Going on last year's form he could just do it, particularly if the second leg is the same.

I put Loix in the poll because I hope someday he will win a rally :) wishful thinking I guess. Who knows.

The weather is good at the moment in Germany, but rain is forecast for next week which means slippery stages. I hope Petter Solberg will perform well with these weather conditions.

Originally posted by Marco_Wrc
I put Loix in the poll because I hope someday he will win a rally :) wishful thinking I guess. Who knows.


Next year - in a Peugeot :wink:

Originally posted by RallyRaider


Next year - in a Peugeot :wink:

I missed the rumours about that, so didn't know exactly what you were talking about. But now I know.
It would be a great opportunity for Loix to win some rallies.

Freddy is talking to several teams, but he explicitly said that he' like to stay with Hyndai (why - don't know don't ask :))

BTW, Bugalski will be driving for Citroen in Germany too ;)

Originally posted by ales
Freddy is talking to several teams, but he explicitly said that he' like to stay with Hyndai (why - don't know don't ask :))

BTW, Bugalski will be driving for Citroen in Germany too ;)

Because he likes the team, not the car though. Although he's talking also to Citroën, the most likely he'll go to Peugeot given his relations in the past with Marloboro. They supported him in the early stages of his career. (Corolla and Mitsu)

I'll put my money on Martin in the Focus. That's assuming that it reaches the finish line, of course :wink:

1st two stages go to Burns. He leads with Colin, Markko, and Loeb following. Marcus 6th, Carlos behind, Panizzi 9th (:confused:) and Bugalski in 17th if anyone cares ;)

As wonderful as it would be for Burnsie to lead the whole rally and take the win, I hold my reservations as to whether he will be able to.

I think Loeb and Panizzi, not to mention Marcus, will be pushing him soon enough, and I think it would only be a matter of time before McRash has an off and finds something to hit.

Let's keep in mind that with the new rules in place for next season, a lot of these drivers and driving for contracts now, so I suspect we can expect to see a lot harder racing?

That new Focus is going well, mixing it with the French cars. Markko blitzed SS4 to move in front of Burns. Thankfully at that - feels unnatural for Burnsie to be leading in a Peugeot :tongue:

Panizzi must be taking his time to wind up. Fair enoough since he has practically zero experience of this event. He's probably using it as a warm up for Corsica and San Remo.

The new Skoda is having some teething problem, bit of a shame, but not unexpected.

Originally posted by RallyRaider
That new Focus is going well, mixing it with the French cars. Markko blitzed SS4 to move in front of Burns.

Only to lose 51 seconds to him on SS5 and slip back to 5th. I just got home, no idea what happened. At the moment it's Burns - Loeb - Gronholm - McRae - Martin - Sainz.

Times over the top 10 are still very close, anything could happen in the next 2 days.....

1 - Burns - 57'16"1
2 - Loeb - 57'27"3
3 - Gronholm - 57'28"0
4 - McRae - 57'43"8
5 - Panizzi - 57'52"9
6 - Martin - 57'54"6
7 - Sainz - 57'56"4
8 - Duval - 57'58"0
9 - Robert - 58'06"5
10 - Makinen - 58'10"0

wrc.com

Markko Martin has lost the lead of Rally Deutschland after experienced gearboxz problems on SS5, the rerun through Stein Und Wein Fell.

Martin's Focus has lost the use of its top two gears and the Estonian driver has dropped more than 50 seconds in the 17km stage and is now 38s behind Richard Burns in the Peugeot 206 WRC.

The fault in the Focus cannot be fixed until it makes it back to the service park at Bostalsee so Martin is expected to lose more time in the next stage, Dhrontal.

You would think they would have that fixed after the problems on previous rallies :mad:

and lose time is exactly what he's doing - 41s to the winner on stage 6 and stage 7 to go today (not sure if there's a service before that)

He will lose time, he has no top end gear range so he is probably hitting the rev limiter in 4th and running the hell out of it.....poor Markko gets no luck :frown:

Bad luck for Markko, he fell back almost a minute and a half with this gearbox problem. If they can fix it at service he should be on a charge tomorrow. As should Gronholm, he made up bags of time on the Baumholder Military Complex stages of Leg two last year.

SS8 Marcus - Duval - Martin, and Burn's lead is a whooping 0.7 s :)

SS9 Martin - Loeb - Gronholm and Marcus now in the lead. Markko still 10th.

SS10 Martin - Mcrae - Loeb, Marcus still leads by 5 seconds with Markko moving past Solberg and Robert into 8th.

SS11 Martin - Kresta (!) - McRae.

Matin now 5th 47.7 seconds behind the leader Gronholm, and he took 25 seconds out of Marcus, 22 seconds out of Colin, and 48 seconds out of Burns on this stage, leapfroging Duvail, Sainz, and Panizzi in the process. Loeb now 2nd about 10 seconds off Marcus and Burns 3rd and 28 seconds adrift.

Yes, I do have a life :)

SS11 - Martin is on a flyer now, he won this stage 16 seconds ahead of Kresta in the 206, to move up to 5th. Gronholm still in lead, Burns slips to 3rd behind Loeb, McRae in 4th is the next target for Martin.

Edit - you just beat me there, Ales :lol:

Martin is definitely still in this rally! I think he is benifiting from running early on the road. Just look at the times of Kresta and Loix, both early runners too, they are much faster that you'd expect them to be.

The rest of the stages today are repeats so Markko probably won't have that advantage on them. We'll see, he should at least catch McRaeand Burns.

And how about Marcus :biggrin:

Provided he doesn't have any more gearbox gremlins, I think Markko has a very good chance of getting a win. At the very least I think he'll beat Loeb for second place, but Marcus may manage to up his pace just enough to hold the top spot.

I'm disappointed with Burns, he was driving superbly yesterday. It might be road position that's hurting him today but he seems to have lost the pace he had in Leg 1.


Go Markko!

You're right, Phil. Rain came down for those who started later down the order.

Okay Alex.

SS12 and things are back to being very tight amongst the frontrunners, except for Burns who is going to be passed by Martin and McRae if he doesn't regain his speed of yesterday.

Loeb took the win on SS 12 and moves within 6.4 seconds of Gronholm :eek: Next up is a rerun of the very long Panzerplate stage, last time through Loeb and Gronholm set identical times. This rally is setting itself up nicely :smile:

This time Markko went 30 seconds faster than he did earler on the stage. Kresta and Schwarz improved their time by 20. Waiting for the rest...

Which site are you getting the SS times from Alex? Do you follow the splits on wrc.com?

Originally posted by RallyRaider
Which site are you getting the SS times from Alex? Do you follow the splits on wrc.com?

Yep :cool:

Then you'll have noticed that Loeb has set exactly the same splits as Martin 6 sectors in, that's close! Both a few seconds up on Marcus. Burns is back on the boil too.

Loeb leads the rally now after finishing the stage in secong 0.2s slower than Markko. And Markko is 0.9 behind McRae who in turn is 0.8 s behind Burns.

I'm thinking the podium will be Loeb, Gronholm and Martin, in that order. After his last few disasters Marcus will be thinking in terms of the championship and settle for 8 points. Having said that there is still a long way to go, many dramas could yet unfold.

I may be silly (ok, shut up now :)), but where do you get the splits? I listen to the wrc radio, but the only results I see before my eyes are the ones on the results page and I get them only after the car finishes the stage.

From the wrc.com home page you go to the 'RESULTS' page. Then select 'Splits' form the menu down the left. It uses GPS data I believe, but sometimes goes a little wacky.

Check it out it's cool! :cool:

OK, day 2 is over, and Loeb leads Marcus and Markko into the final leg of the rally. The last stage win went Kresta, btw, but it was a rather short stage to make much difference on the leaderboard, aside from Sainz and Duval swapping places again.

9 stages today, 5 went to Markko, 2 to Marcus and one each to Loeb and Kresta. Have to wonder if Marcus is pushing 100%.

So 6 stages to go tomorrow with one service after the first three, so 1 chance to correct the tyre choice. We'll see. Markko can win this, afterall, he did make up 53 seconds on the leader from yesterday (although the leader at the time, Burns, is already behind him). Can't wait!

On a side note, follwing the rally with www.wrc.com and with the wrc radio playing is the next best thing to watching it live on TV (being at the event in person is beyond competition).

Can I stick my nose in here too? :biggrin:

As much as I want Markko to win it I think it will be a battle between Sebastien and Marcus. Still, it's going to be a very interesting day tomorrow.

I just hope those tricky conditions won't catch anyone out like they did Jani Paasonen - five broken ribs and a broken shoulder blade for his co-driver... ouch! :frown:

-Pille-

SS17 goes to mcrae and at SS18 so far Colin passes Markko for third.

The stage goes to Mcrae and Loeb noticeably extends his lead over Marcus.

Markko and Marcus are supposedly in trouble, kinda similar one :) Markko is said to have lost front wheel drive and Marcus is said to have ripped off two wheel rims (he's carrying one spare). And one more stage before the service. Citroen 1-2?

Panizzi is experiencing brake problems (good news for Solberg).

The saddest thing is that there's still one stage to go before service... :frown: Hope Markko and Marcus can reach it.

And a ha-ha to rally radio - nice song they picked for the unfortunate duo: "Road to hell" :rolleyes: :biggrin:

-Pille-

I think Marcus should be okay. reportedly he damaged a wheel on SS 17 so is probably taking it alittle easy since he can't risk another.

McRae seems to be having trouble of his own on SS19. Burns should benifit from that...

Fingers crossed for Seb. :wink:

Sebastien won!!! :bigthumb: Yay!!! Congrats!!!!

-Pille-

Loeb sure cut it fine at the end. Marcus really pushed him or perhaps Seb was just demonstrating a flair for the dramatic :)

Closes the Championship standings up a bit. Although the guy who hasn't won anything is still comfortably in front :confused:


1. 18 LOEB-ELENA Citroen Xsa A8 3h46'50"400 102.7 km/h 1 1
2. 1 GRONHOLM-RAUTIA Peugeot 206 A8 3h46'54"000 + 00'03"60 2 2
3. 2 BURNS-REID Peugeot 206 A8 3h47'10"100 + 00'19"70 3 3
4. 17 MCRAE-RINGER Citroen Xsa A8 3h47'21"800 + 00'31"40 4 4
5. 4 MARTIN-PARK Ford Focus A8 3h47'48"300 + 00'57"90 5 5
6. 19 SAINZ-MARTI Citroen Xsa A8 3h48'29"000 + 01'38"60 6 6
7. 5 DUVAL-PREVOT Ford Focus A8 3h48'38"500 + 01'48"10 7 7
8. 7 SOLBERG-MILLS Subaru Impr A8 3h49'20"600 + 02'30"20 8 8
9. 21 ROBERT-BEDON Peugeot 206 A8 3h50'03"200 + 03'12"80 9 9
10. 3 PANIZZI-PANIZZI Peugeot 206 A8 3h50'30"000 + 03'39"60 10 10
11. 11 LOIX-SMEETS Hyundai Acc A8 3h51'46"000 + 04'55"60 11 11
12. 10 SCHWARZ- HIEMER Hyundai Acc A8 3h54'05"600 + 07'15"20 12 12
13. 6 HIRVONEN-LEHTIN Ford Focus A8 3h54'24"700 + 07'34"30 13 13
14. 34 SOHLBERG-HONKAN Mitsubishi A8 3h58'39"800 + 11'49"40 14 14
15. 22 KAHLE-GOBEL Skoda Octav A8 3h59'22"300 + 12'31"90 15 15
16. 33 TSJOEN-CHEVALLI Toyota Coro A8 4h01'43"100 + 14'52"70 16 16
17. 24 LATVALA-ANTTILA Ford Focus A8 4h01'49"000 + 14'58"60 17 17
18. 12 STOHL-MINOR Hyundai Acc A8 4h02'58"300 + 16'07"90 18 18
19. 26 WARMBOLD-PRICE Ford Focus A8 4h07'08"700 + 20'18"30 19 19
20. 27 KOPECKY-SCHOVAN Skoda Octav A8 4h10'44"800 + 23'54"40 20 20
21.101 WEVERS-POEL Toyota Coro A8 4h11'15"300 + 24'24"90 21 21
22. 52 SOLA-ROMANI Mitsubishi N4 4h11'45"900 + 24'55"50 1 1
23. 28 CSERHALMI-PALIV Ford Focus A8 4h13'00"300 + 26'09"90 22 22
24. 55 ROWE-AGNEW Subaru Impr N4 4h16'18"800 + 29'28"40 2 2
25.102 WALLENWEIN-ZEIT Mitsubishi A8 4h17'35"100 + 30'44"70 23 23
26. 61 KULIG-BURKAT Mitsubishi N4 4h18'33"300 + 31'42"90 3 3
27. 51 SINGH-OH Proton Pert N4 4h20'53"500 + 34'03"10 4 4
28. 25 DALE-BARGERY Hyundai Acc A8 4h22'38"700 + 35'48"30 24 24
29. 65 BLOMQVIST-GONI Subaru Impr N4 4h23'23"300 + 36'32"90 5 5
30.113 FRANCO-AZEVEDO Mitsubishi N4 4h28'40"200 + 41'49"80 6 6
31.108 VANWOENSEL-SNAE Mitsubishi N4 4h28'55"200 + 42'04"80 7 7
32.105 JOSTES-ENDERLE Citroen Sax A6 4h29'58"800 + 43'08"40 25 1
33.117 SOLOWOW-BARAN Mitsubishi N4 4h30'55"800 + 44'05"40 8 8
34. 80 TRIVINO-BARRABE Mitsubishi N4 4h31'18"200 + 44'27"80 9 9
35.110 GIRDAUSKAS-SHOS Mitsubishi N4 4h32'22"500 + 45'32"10 10 10
36. 72 AUR-BERGHEA Mitsubishi N4 4h37'23"900 + 50'33"50 11 11
37.114 LIEBEHENSCHEL-B Mitsubishi N4 4h39'07"900 + 52'17"50 12 12
38. 59 MARRINI-AGOSTIN Mitsubishi N4 4h42'34"400 + 55'44"00 13 13
39. 70 ERRANI-CASADIO Mitsubishi N4 4h42'34"800 + 55'44"40 14 14
40.125 FAHRNER-POSCHNE VW Polo GTI N2 4h44'37"700 + 57'47"30 15 1
41.128 PRILLWITZ-GRIMB VW Polo GTI N2 4h49'23"800 + 1h02'33" 16 2
42.124 PEETERS- LEFIN Mitsubishi N4 4h54'43"000 + 1h07'52" 17 15
43.122 HOHLHEIMER-KIPP Fiat Seicen A5 4h56'05"300 + 1h09'14" 26 1
44.129 BURGARD-SCHNEID VW Polo GTI N2 5h03'32"400 + 1h16'42" 18 3

Originally posted by RallyRaider
Although the guy who hasn't won anything is still comfortably in front :confused:
Yeah, that's the problem with the new points system - a win just doesn't matter so much anymore. Burns is a great driver but does he deserve to be on top of the leader board? :dunno:

All in all Rallye Deutschland was great. I'm sad Markko had so much trouble with his Ford but what can you do. Now on to Finland... :wink:

-Pille-

Originally posted by huudo
Loeb. Basta!

:biggrin:

There can only be one! :biggrin:

Seb did deliver, although it was a very close call at the end. Thank G. that they have communications with the rally center, so that he knew Gronholm was on a charge and in the second half of the last stage he kept his cool.

I'm wondering if Ford is going to get their act together... There's always something wrong with them. When was it that they were champion the last time... Markko is in the wrong team and Duval has still a lot to learn. Colin McCrash threw away his chances for a podium finish too. :bloated:

Oh and Freddy made Armin look very week. Give da man a Pug or Citroën! I heard today that it'll depend on where Gardemeister will be going for Freddy's seat next year. If Garde goes to Pug, then Freddy to Citroën or the other way around.

Sure you're not being just a tad biased there Guido? As I recall Loix and Schwarz were running very close for most of the rally. It wasn't until the final leg when Schwarz dropped behind with engine problems.

I have no doubt that Loix would do well in a Peugeot or Xsara however. Didn't know Toni Gardemeister was in with a shot of joining the big French teams too. He has already showed well in a Gifone Pug back in 2001. But he didn't do much when Mitsubishi gave him a chance, much like Loix...

of course I'm biased Phil. :wink:

I heard about Gardemeister from the secretary of Freddy's official fan-club, through my brother in law who is a true dedicated fan. Much more then I am. I think both Freddy and Tony are more confortable in short wheel based cars, like Loix did pretty well in the Corolla. When it rained in Germany he did a 3rd and 5th best time on a SS. So in the wet where the power advantage is not so big, he can keep up with the top.

We'll see how it goes.