{"id":690,"date":"2011-05-09T10:51:37","date_gmt":"2011-05-09T15:51:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gotcone.com\/blog\/?p=690"},"modified":"2011-05-09T11:09:14","modified_gmt":"2011-05-09T16:09:14","slug":"wrc-rally-ditalia-sardinia-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gotcone.com\/blog\/wrc-rally-ditalia-sardinia-review-690.html","title":{"rendered":"WRC Rally D’Italia Sardinia Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rally D’Italia Sardinia weekend started off with some exciting news… Volkswagen officially announced its intent to enter the WRC with the Polo R WRC. The VW campaign will begin in 2013 with a 5 year commitment to WRC competition. <\/p>\n

\"VW<\/a><\/p>\n

The announcement by VW comes on the same weekend as the WRC debut of the MINI John Cooper Works WRC car. The MINI debut got off to a great start with MINI’s driver Kris Meeke beating reigning WRC champion Sebastien Loeb’s stage time on the opening stage. Meeke then set the 3rd fastest time on the 2nd stage, putting him in 4th overall. But on the next stage Meeke felt something braking for a 5th gear corner and ran wide into some loose gravel. He was forced to retire from the day and restart under Super Rally rules on the following day, which put him out of the running. The other MINI driver, Dani Sordo, was able to stay consistent and ended up in 6th overall, a great showing for MINI’s first event.<\/p>\n

\"MINI<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really happy we\u2019ve finished the rally with some points,\u201d said Sordo. \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to fight when the gaps to the driver in front and behind are big but it\u2019s nice to take the experience with a new car and with a new team. We will take the data from the car and look at everything to try and do better on the next rally. I\u2019m really enjoying developing the car. The people in Prodrive are really professional and people know really well the car and the direction we need to work. I have confidence we will do better in the next rally.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Meeke was not the only driver to have difficulties early in the rally. Ford driver, Jari Matti Latvala made a very early exit, rolling his Ford Focus RS WRC on the very first stage of the rally. It was a very disappointing start for Latvala who started the event in 4th place in the Driver’s championship standings. Although the incident was caused by a pace note mistake by Latvala’s co-driver Mikka Antilla, Latvala refused to completely place the blame on Mikka. \u201cAbout three kilometres after the start of the opening stage, Miikka made a mistake with a pace note and called a left corner much faster than it was,\u201d said Latvala. \u201cI approached the bend almost flat out, and by the time I realised it was slower and tighter it was too late. I tried to brake, but the road was slippery and the car went backwards into the ditch and hit a wall. I don\u2019t blame Miikka. I’ve made plenty of mistakes behind the wheel and every co-driver has made an error at some point. We all try to be perfect, but we’re only human and I feel disappointed for Miikka also.” Latvala was able to restart the following day, but was only able to battle his way back to 18th place.<\/p>\n

\"Mikko<\/a><\/p>\n

Latvala’s co-driver faired much better in Rally D’Italia Sardinia. Mikko Hirvonen and Sebastien Loeb battled throughout for the win, but Loeb grabbed the lead early and was able to hold on to secure yet another victory and extending his lead in the championship standings. Mikko was able to keep the lead a bit smaller as he grabbed the bonus points for winning the power stage, putting him just 7 points behind Loeb and sitting in 2nd place. \u201cIt\u2019s been a really good weekend,\u201d said Hirvonen. \u201cEven though we got a puncture earlier in the rally I\u2019m very pleased and it\u2019s great to get these three Power Stage points.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Loeb<\/a><\/p>\n

Loeb secured his 64th career WRC victory despite being forced to clean the roads throughout the entire rally. \u201cLeading from nearly the start that\u2019s really a good job,\u201d said Loeb. \u201cMikko was pushing very hard behind so we really had to take big risks all the time. We lost time in some places because of the cleaning but we took it back in some other places. It was really a hard fight but I did not believe at the start of the rally that I could make it like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Petter<\/a><\/p>\n

Battling along with Loeb and Hirvonen was Citroen privateer Petter Solberg. Solberg was just 5.8 seconds behind Mikko going into the power stage, but it was too large of a gap to be made up and Solberg was forced to settle for the 3rd and final podium spot. \u201cI definitely could have won this event,\u201d said Solberg. \u201cWe had some small problems but it was impossible because Loeb hasn\u2019t had anything at all. However, a podium is very important for me and for my sponsors. It\u2019s been quite a difficult start to the season. The speed was good in the stages, but we didn\u2019t always get a clean run on every rally. Now it was good fun on the stages and we ended up on the podium.\u201d The podium finish puts Solberg in 5th place in the driver’s championship, but is 54 points behind the leader Loeb.<\/p>\n

\"Sebastien<\/a><\/p>\n

Sebastien Ogier started the final day of the rally sitting 4.9 seconds ahead of Petter, but a broken suspension on the 2nd to last stage forced Ogier to settle for a 4th place finish. \u201cWe hit some small rocks I didn\u2019t have in my notes and it broke my suspension,\u201d said Ogier. \u201cI thought it was a puncture so I got out of the car to check in case I had destroyed the wheel and would risk more damage. Finally, the wheel was intact but the suspension was damaged.\u201d The Citroen team was able to make repairs at the final service and allowed Ogier to finish the penultimate stage.<\/p>\n

Loeb’s victory and Ogier’s 4th place keeps Citroen firmly planted atop the manufacturer’s championship standings, 17 points in front of the Ford team of Mikko Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala.<\/p>\n

Mads Ostberg, the former Subaru privateer, continued his series of strong showings finish in 5th behind Ogier, despite having a scare on the Monte Olia stage. \u201cWe\u2019re not sure 100 per cent but at least I thought [the pace note] was a short three left over a crest but it was a short three right,\u201d said Ostberg. \u201cI just turned the wrong way basically, came over the crest and saw the road was turning right so I had to try to correct it. But I was too late and we hit the bank on the outside, spun and lost 20 seconds.\u201d The top 5 finish extended Stobart’s string of top 5 finishes and put the team of Matthew Wilson and Ostberg in 3rd place in the manufacturer’s standings. Ostberg now sits in 6th in the driver’s championship standings.<\/p>\n

The 2011 WRC season continues May 26th in Argentina, which should mark the return of Ken Block following his huge crash in Portugal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rally D’Italia Sardinia weekend started off with some exciting news… Volkswagen officially announced its intent to enter the WRC with the Polo R WRC. The VW campaign will begin in 2013 with a 5 year commitment to WRC competition. The announcement by VW comes on the same weekend as the WRC debut of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gotcone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gotcone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gotcone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gotcone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gotcone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.gotcone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":701,"href":"https:\/\/www.gotcone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690\/revisions\/701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gotcone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gotcone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gotcone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}