Rally New Zealand

The World Rally Circus has hit the stages in NZ, they're already halfway through the first leg. Chris Atkinson is once again doing his reputation a world of good. Setting his first fastest stage time in a WRC, in only his third event! He is really showing what he can do, if not for a poor time on SS2 he could have been leading Solberg! In fact he is currently (after SS5) closer to Solberg than Martin and Duval are to their team leaders. :eek:

The usual suspects, Gronholm Solberg and Loeb are tight at the top, Solberg acting as road sweeper, but overnight rain would have minimised that disadvantage.

Ford unfortunately, are once again way off the pace. Kresta forced to retire after a shakedown crash and Gardemeister slower than a charging Galli in the Mitsubishi.

Ha, I say Ford are off the pace and Toni immediately goes and pull off a ripper of a time in SS6. :) Duvall has hit his stride as well. Loeb is starting to pull away from Marcus and Petter, the Michelins must be coming on song. While Markko and Atkinson are neck and neck fighting for 5th.

Do you have the WRC.com paysite stuff? How are you keeping up with this in real-time?

No SabreKahan, I hate all the way the used to be free sites are becoming paysites one by one, so I'm not going to encourage 'em!

There are a few places to keep up with the lastest stage times. Best ones are the Subaru World Rally Team (www.swrt.com) and Mitsubishi (http://www.mitsubishi-motors.com) sites. The wrc.com site offers split times but last year when they were free the splits didn't work half the time.

Leg two is underway right now, I wonder it the Pirelli runners can match the Michelins today? It was quite curious how Citroen and Ford blitzed the Pirelli guys on the latter stages yesterday.

Rally NZ has been run and won. Seb Loeb taking a comfortable win in the end, The Michelins having the edge in WRC just like they have in F1 lately. Marcus Gronholm showed he has learned how to finished second, and even Petter Solberg settled for third in the end. Some interesting battles down the field right up until the end with Markko Martin taking fifth off Toni Gardemeister on the last stage. Similarly Pons snatched the PWRC win of Arai with a great time on the last stage, although Cody Crocker was the first Group N home.

Next up, Sardinia in three weeks!

Whatever it was that made Pug switch to Pirelli was a dire miscalculation.

Yeah, they've made a few of them lately. Moving to the 307 being the biggest!