World Rally Championship 2006

Well, it seems the 2006 WRC season has begun in less than auspicious circumstamces.
Trailers (!???) blocked the road and only 11 of the top cars managed to complete the first stage. And then a further blockage on SS3 has turned that into a non-event as well.

Sad, sad, sad.

While I still can't get used to the look of this years WRC, teams, rules and everything, I was very happy for Marcus Gronholm and Timo Rautainen to win their first Monte and debut rally for Ford. They were lucky Seb Loeb had an off on the first day and was playing catchup the rest of the event. In fact scratch that, Seb was the lucky one, under real rally rules he'd have retired and scored nothing.

If nothing else this year should be interesting to see lots and lots of privateer entries doing well when the handfull of big guns trip up. And I love the look of the new Focus, I wonder if a kit from Tamiya (diecast chassis?) or Hasegawa is in prospect?

Well the results showed up an appalling truth about the rules that they currently operate under. How can you explain to a non motorsport person how someone not completing 100% of the route can come 2nd? Should be changed so that they can still compete, not score any points.

Changed the title of this thread, not enough traffic to have one for each rally at the moment. :(

Agree about the super rally rules. It just doesn't seem right to me, more about luck than anything else. Although well done to Sebastien for exploiting them to the maximum.

Swedish Rally is over now too. Second straight win for Marcus in his new Ford. :) Could have all gone up in smoke on the last Leg but an oil leak was fixed at service and the Focus was back up to speed. Big battle between Giggi Galli and Daniel Carlsson for third in a pair of Mitsubishis, they were separated by less than a second for most of the last day. Deciding factor was the last SS when Galli lost some gears and Carlsson claimed his first ever podium finish at WRC level.

Troublesome season continues for Subaru, they seem to have caught all the old Peugeot gremlins or something. Petter will be back to competitiveness pretty soon I'm sure.

Now a month to wail until the first gravel rally of the season in Mexico. Can the Focus be as quick on dirt as has been on tarmac, snow and ice?

Yes it can! :)