WRC Citroen Lead
Tremendous achievements have had happened to the top teams in the past two rounds of WRC rally. First of all Citroen team still leads the overall score, as the round #7 of Greece passes halfway of mid calendar year there would be 80% chance of championship win for Citroen. Furthermore there will be another 5 rounds of WRC Rally events for the current year (might be less?). So far the number one driver Loeb has made 6 finishes and scoring as a winner on every round except on WRC Italy.
On the other hand Mikko the Ford Team number one had failed to finish on WRC Argentine. It was the first retirement for him on his immaculate 22 podium finishes record, due to technical problems. Mikko was on equal par of time attack with Sordo at SS 16, when his Ford Focus developed over-heat. The Focus coolant temperature simply shot up, and by the time Ford Team instructed him to slow down the engine had already emitted lots of smoke into the cabin. There was no evidence of oil and water coolant leaking. His roadside tweaking did not reveal any obvious temporary solution, Ford then decided to retire the number one Focus in apparent engine saving reason!
A terrible blow for Ford; it was a setback as they had meticulously plan a comprehensive strategy in order to slow down the unstoppable Citroen C4 winning. To make the matter worse their second Focus driven by Latvala 
Ford Focus WRC: Top Two Positions
The round #6 at Sardinia of Italy the luck had turned around in Ford’s favour, ever since SS 7 Loeb has had a series of problems. Problems arising from his C4’s lack of stability, unfortunate 10 seconds incurring time penalty and a major blow of tire puncture at SS 11. Due to the widening gap Loeb immediately changed his tactic to merely target for 3rd place, yet his huge effort paid for 4th place behind Petter. Meanwhile the number two Citroen Sordo had turbo malfunction yielding him an 8th position.
As Citroen had a series of misfortunes it was Latvala who lead the pace sweeping the gravel road; making a better way for whoever was behind him. However it took longer time for his dust to settle down, ironically giving him more edges to win. And everybody seemed to expect him to slow down for Mikko to catch up in order for getting max points to Ford, but unfortunately due to the dust and his fever the wide gap was simply too much to give in. It was second win for Latvala record since Sweden 2008 event.
Rally Driving Breaking News : SS 5 WRC Greece
The Rally of Greece could be the interesting round for Loeb to better his score over his Ford rivalry, and not the other way around as Greece is indeed the toughest terrain with scorching heat of rally driving event of the year. The heat would pose dehydration to any driver, yet it will be the engine that suffers more. Because the winding, steep climbing mountain rock roads and many hairpin bends make this a relatively slow rally (only Turkey was slower in 2008), there is little cooling from the flow of air.
In fact Petter Solberg had prepared for such gruelling heat that
Petter Solberg's Secret Intercooler
Petter has apparently making a low profile point; at the time of writing this article he was as consistent as ever holding 5th position overall, 30 Hp down on his car did not hold him back! Perhaps he forgot to tell us that he beefed up his intercooler as well, or is it his strategy of not revealing his secret weapon........
No comments:
Post a Comment