FIA Rally

FIA Rally : WRC Round 11 Catalunya

Everyone but Citroen Team has suffered understeering technical problems. Mikko had expressed his uneasiness toward his task to race the asphalt “Ace’ Loeb, through out most of Spain Rally Ford Team had been plagued with the car set up to overcome the understeer problems. Acutely aware of the risk throwing his Focus’ overall balance all together, Mikko had instead left his car set up virtually intact as was.

His best effort was second position at the first stage and third consistently through out the remaining 17 stages. Unlike his team mate Jarri M Latvalla had been busily altering his car set up. Though he did make progress at day two, Jarri was pleased with the experiments. His consistent 6^th placed through out all 18 stages was a testament for his confidence holding the task for podium finish; Ford Team had remained within the top four out of WRC points.

WRC Citroen Lead

WRC Citroen Lead is not an elusive mystery. Both teams Ford and Citroen have equal engine performances, yet it is the chassis engineering with matching suspension set up that holds the winning strategy at the very edge! FIA dictates fair ruling and regulation for any Team on any winning opportunity; Thermodynamic efficiency on either turbocharger set up or the basic petrol engine is on equal par for the leading Teams. Granted, that not even the latest advanced Car ECU and software mapping could be tweaked further as the sole winning effort, it is the chassis engineering that counts.

Clearly both the driver and the positioning strategy also play important roles, this time around on this event it was Daniel Sordo’s responsibility to keep Mikko at bay from attacking Sebastian directly. But this time Sordo was driving more leisurely as Mikko could not put out his maximum effort as on the second leg the gap between the two was already a huge half minute.

Subsequently it was Mikko’s effort to hold the third position from attacking Petter Solberg now with C4 replacing his old Xsara, for all the circumstances Mikko had logically decided not to chase as madly the two Citroen’s drivers. Mikko still lead merely one point against Seb on current WRC points, that is until the Wales Rally of Great Britain; the event which no doubt Mikko will have the opportunity taking the revenge at max attack. It’s his best stages that even Seb has recognized all along….