WRC Rally Japan

[Knowlesy]

I dare say next year it will be even worse! Unless Hirvonen steps up we are in for a bad 2008. Wouldn't be too shocked if Loeb won them all.

A retirement from a rally never used to be a bad thing, the field was once so deep and such good quality you could afford multiple retirements. Now if Marcus or Loeb crash even once they are bricking themselves over the championship points situation.

[flying finn]

WRC Rally Japan - Results

1. Hirvonen Lehtinen > Ford Focus > 3h23'57"6 (103.0 km/h)
2. Sordo Marti > Citroen C4 > 3h24'35"0 (+ 00'37"4)
3. H.Solberg Menkerud > Ford Focus > 3h28'31"3 (+ 04'33"7)
4. Wilson Orr > Ford Focus > 3h30'35"5 (+ 06'37"9)
5. Perez Companc Volta > Ford Focus > 3h30'38"0 (+ 06'40"4)
6. Stohl Minor > Citroen Xsara > 3h31'01"9 (+ 07'04"3)
7. Villagra Perez Companc > Ford Focus > 3h35'12"9 (+ 11'15"3)
8. Taguchi Stacey > Mitsubishi Lancer > 3h44'37"7 (+ 20'40"1)
9. Pozzo Stillo > Mitsubishi Lancer > 3h45'50"6 (+ 21'53"0)
10. Araujo Ramalho > Mitsubishi Lancer > 3h48'11"1 (+ 24'13"5)
17. P.Solberg Mills > Subaru Impreza > 3h50'25"8 (+ 26'28"2)
26. Latvala Anttila > Ford Focus > 4h04'47"2 (+ 40'49"6)

DNF. Loeb-Elena > Citroen C4 > Mechanical SS26
DNF. Atkinson-Prevot > Subaru Impreza > Went off road SS7
DNF. Gronholm-Rautiainen > Ford Focus > Went off road SS4

Championship Standings

1. M. Gronholm (FIN) 6 10 8 8 5 8 10 10 10 5 10 6 8 0 -- -- 104
2. S. Loeb (F) 10 8 0 10 10 10 0 8 6 10 8 10 10 0 -- -- 100
3. M. Hirvonen (FIN) 4 6 10 6 4 6 8 5 8 6 6 5 0 10 -- -- 84
4. D. Sordo (SP) 8 0 0 5 6 3 6 0 0 0 3 8 6 8 -- -- 53
5. P. Solberg (N) 3 0 5 0 8 0 4 6 0 3 2 3 4 0 -- -- 38
6. H. Solberg (N) 0 5 6 0 0 4 5 4 4 0 0 0 0 6 -- -- 34
7. C. Atkinson (AUS) 5 1 0 4 0 2 0 3 5 0 5 1 3 0 -- -- 29
8. J. Latvala (FIN) 0 0 4 2 1 5 0 0 0 1 4 2 5 0 -- -- 24
9. F.Duval (BEL) -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 8 -- 4 0 -- -- -- 12
10. M. Stohl (AUT) 0 2 0 3 0 1 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 3 -- -- 12

two rounds remain > Ireland and Great Britain

[HrRACING]

What was loebs mechanical in ss26?

[GolddustMini]

oil pressure apparently

[HrRACING]

I bet that gets his mechanical out of the way too, when he might have had one another time. baaaaaahh

[Knowlesy]

Well done Mikko.

Sordo must be quite pleased with that as well, not massively far behind Mikko.

Henning closes on his brother again.

The rest of the top ten, err....

[zac510]

I can't find any pictures of Atkinson's car post-crash.

[BertMk2]

I haven't seen any pictures but from the in car footage they really need to have a look at that and work out what happened there. It looked like the cage broke and the rear quarter appears to have been ripped clean off resulting in a large 'fresh air hole' - there's no way that should happen.

[WJM]

Here is a screen shot from the footage, hope I'm allowed to post it?
http://i22.tinypic.com/2aj6zwx.jpg

btw, you probably won't find much pictures of this rally, because spectating is made almost impossible at the rally.

[Notso Swift]

Gee, I wonder why they couldn't fix it under super rally!

[shhh]

Here's a vid of Atkinson's crash. Check out behind the co driver, the whole car has disappeared !!

http://www.motorsportmad.com/view/26...on-crashes-out

[sihorton]

no outside pics of atko's scooby have surfaced so far.
Scary how it's been torn open like that, very lucky crew to be un injured.
Would love to see a pic from the outside of the damage!

Si

[bigted]

best add some extra bars then si

[cg7aa]

It feels a bit strange that for such a violent crash which could have had nasty implications for Prevot, there is barely any information on what exactly happened. To my eyes, it appears to have been instant catastrophic structural failure.

I can't help but feel it will be one of those incidents where due to the crew having a very lucky escape, not a great deal of attention will be paid to it. I sincerely hope I am wrong. Narrow escapes do not occur infinitely.

On a different note, how quick was Loeb to lay the blame at Daniel's door! He seemed absolutely sure in his mind who was at fault. OK, in the end it transpired Daniel had indeed made a mistake but I would have thought in public at least, Sebastian would have been less blunt about it. I believe his reply to the interviewer's question was a seemingly abrupt "ask the co-driver". I don't think I've ever seen him like that.

[zac510]

You can take some consolation from the fact that it was not the passenger section that was breached. It's certain that the driver/nav section of the roll cage is a lot stronger than the rear section, which does not have to protect from anything, really, and shearing like that is infact beneficial to absorbing energy.

[GolddustMini]

Originally Posted by cg7aa

On a different note, how quick was Loeb to lay the blame at Daniel's door! He seemed absolutely sure in his mind who was at fault. OK, in the end it transpired Daniel had indeed made a mistake but I would have thought in public at least, Sebastian would have been less blunt about it. I believe his reply to the interviewer's question was a seemingly abrupt "ask the co-driver". I don't think I've ever seen him like that.

if you watch the footage you can hear that even before they left the road, loeb had already realised the wrong note had been called and was questioning it as they went for the undergrowth!


on a different note id say the likely cause of loebs eventual retirement (on the last proper stage of the final day) was more to allow him to have a fresh engine in GB as upposed to genuine oil pressure problems

[cg7aa]

Originally Posted by WJM

...btw, you probably won't find much pictures of this rally, because spectating is made almost impossible at the rally.

Having had the chance to see highlights of the PWRC cars yesterday, I see what you mean! The terrain and vegetation doesn't give much room for spectators. From what I saw, there doesn't appear to be much elevated terrain to stand on. Maybe the locals are aware of this and so are somewhat content with the superspecials. Personally, I would be somewhat frustrated!