Swedish Rally

Anybody been following this? Very tight and exciting at the top, lots of lead changes. Final leg today with six stages to run, should be a cracker!

Completely forgot about it, but luckily stumbled on the 2nd day's coverage as I was sifting through the channels yesterday.

An epic battle between Marcus and Petter with Loeb in third but with an ailing car. I missed what happened to Markko, but he's in a disapointing distant fourth, and he got even that through others having problems. Oh, and Marcus really doesn't like that long "*beeep* stage", does he? :D

We don't get TV coverage of the rally in Australia until after everything is finished (still waiting for the Monte :(), so I don't know that the beeped commentent is about, but I can imagine. :)
I think Markko had an oil leak yesterday that slowed him over and above the difficulties learning the new car.

Bugger! Fun is over, Marcus has rolled and retired on SS16. Well done to Petter who now has the rally in the bag. Markko Martin won the stage (his first for Peugeot) and is how into third positon.

At least the good news is Chris Atkinson is now only one place off a point scoring position. Not bad for his first event in a WRC and on snow.

One of them was going to make a mistake, so not surprising. Too bad it was Marcus though.

Yeah, but Marcus makes way too many of them lately, he just won't settle for second, even if it’s the sensible thing to do!
Chris Atkinson had a misadventure as well, dropping back 15 minutes or so. Loeb's engine finally cried enough, leaving Markko and Toni Gardemeister in the final two podium positions. Incredibly Toni will be leading the championship if things hold! Good on him. :)

And he does! With Markko second. Very surprising. Ford leads Pug in the manufacturers' championship and Mitsubishi is in a surprising 3rd leading Citroen and Subaru.

Good to see Markko get a second for Pug but I can't help but wonder if he's going to end up like RB with a string of seconds but never a win at Pug.

Hope not, but it's too early to judge. Let's not forget that Marcus, while being more impressive, also hasn't had a win this season yet.

Just watched today's coverage. Solberg was so happy with this win! And let me tell you, Provera seemed pissed off! He was trying to seem and sound as diplomatic as possible, but he was not a happy man: "I understand him, but I also blame him".

On Eurosport they beeped "bloody" - got to hear it on the coverage of the local tv channel. Marcus's crash looked pretty big, and whihc time is it that he has turned the car into a 3-wheeler?

Got a link to the interview with Corrado?
I don't get any TV here so I have to rely on the web :(

Isn't Provera out as head of Peugeot Sport some time soon? Nicolas to replace him I recall.

EDIT: Yup, just Googled it. He is retiring in March, so I guess he would have wanted to go out on a high...

Congrats to Petter...

I'm starting to think Gronholm (after his big crash) purposely blocked Solberg... Petter was pretty "pissed" off about that!

GiGi did surprisingly well for Mitsu too. Watch out for this guy further down the season...

Sorry, Ray, can't find the quotes just yet, but I think an audio interview will be available from the Pug Sport website in the near future.

I don't think Marcus blocked anyone on purpose. first of all, he asked his team on the radio to let him know when Petter would be behind him, the road at that place was very narrow, Marcus's car had 1 less wheel and was very tricky to control in those conditions, and last, Marcus had absolutely nothing to accomplish by that. And of course he's better than that.

Why do you say that 1viadrft? I haven't seen the coverage yet, so don't know what Petter may have said.
Solberg only lost about 10 seconds on the stage passing Gronholm's wreck. Most of that could have been due to him throttling back 'cause the battle was won, Martin being several minutes behind.

I can't believe Marcus would deliberately block anyone, he's not that type of competitor.
Plus, I have seen frame-by-frame photo footage of the encounter and Marcus was as far off the road as possible considering his steering was shattered when Petter approached.

Until I saw the damage I thought he was trying to block him.

Solberg qouted..." I was a little pissed off he didn't move..." Petter actually had to finally pull off onto the shoulder and pass him. Who really knows if it was on purpose or not. It just seemed that way...

Who really knows if it was on purpose or not. It just seemed that way...


Could you drive a car with this kind of damage?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v644/freakray/diapo_316.jpg

Seriously, could you explain how you get a car with damage like that to move in ANY direction, especially over ice and snow?
I'm pretty certain Marcus wasn't steering the car in Petter's path.

At the end of the day, it's not like it cost Petter the rally.

Man, I'm not even a Marcus fan and you're annoying me with your accusation. :p

Judging by the sig and the amount of time you spend with us over in the Subaru forums, I'd guess you're either a Solberg or Hirvonnen (sp?) fan. :-)

Could you drive a car with this kind of damage?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v644/freakray/diapo_316.jpg

Seriously, could you explain how you get a car with damage like that to move in ANY direction, especially over ice and snow?
I'm pretty certain Marcus wasn't steering the car in Petter's path.

At the end of the day, it's not like it cost Petter the rally.

Man, I'm not even a Marcus fan and you're annoying me with your accusation. :p

That's just it... Marcus should have stopped the car and let Petter pass! Marcus' "attempt" to finish the stage in his damaged Pug consisted of his car fish-tailing in both directions of the road which stopped Petter fro passing. I'm not accussing anyone and if you find me annoying... hey, that's on you. I merely am commenting on what I observed. If Gronholm was such a good sport, he would have realized he could not get to the finish in his car's condition. He should have pulled it over way before. Yeah... Petter won and all. But how would you feel if you were in that situation? On the brink of winning the raly? Anything can go wrong and it's all over. That was proved by Loeb and Gronholm in this raly. In rally... it's not over until it's over.

I gotta side with Marcus on this one, and I'm a Solberg fan (part of why I bought a WRX). If my car breaks in the middle of the race and I still have even the slimmest chance of finishing in the points, I'm going to take it, especially if I'm a perennial points contender like Gronholm.

How would I feel if I was in Solberg's place? I'd be woopin' and hollerin'! Hell man I just won a WRC rally! :D Nothing better than to see your opposition crack under the pressure.

Like I said... it doesn't really matter... Solberg won! Just thought I would point out what I observed.

Congrats to Petter and Subaru!

Finally saw the highlights package from Sweden and Gronholm was all over the road in front of Solberg after his roll. I know the Peugeot does not have very good vision to the rear and can only hope that was the reason. Eventually, after a few corners Gonholm pulled right off to the side, stopped and let the Subaru past. Coulda been nasty, Solberg was swearing and carrying on. Sounded like Phil Mills was telling Solberg to stay off the brakes - so they wouldn't slide onto the Peugeot?

Given the condition of the car, Gronholm must have known that once he stopped he was toast. With plenty of manufacturers points on offer if only he could finish and jerry rig something to service, he had to give it a go. Once he stopped and let Solberg through the show was over.