2020 Rallying

[pimmy]

Red Bull TV's highlights were crap today. Hardly any footage from the stages.

[justracing]

Great to see Elfyn Evans on the pace in a new car(to him), his hunched driving style seems most peculiar but he's obviously comfortable that way. Really hoping that the Welsh lad can get a decent result having been given a break this year with Toyota, that "off" for Tanak was absolutely frightening, how strong is that shell/cage?

[hoffman66]

From the footage OI have sen Ogier and Elfyn seem to most assured, Elfyb can certainly win this event given the breaks.

No-one else is really in it honestly! Just them and Neuville, and keep a look out for the classic Ardennes soon, I am sure Neuville will be out in his Nova again!

[rainbow]

Last year I watched WRC on freeview,Spike if I remember,but that channel seems to have been pulled so question is other than Bt where can I watch highlights this year?
At least six nations hasn,t been sold!!

[S griffin]

Itv4 are showing highlights on Tuesday at 8

[cg7aa]

Originally Posted by pimmy

Red Bull TV's highlights were crap today. Hardly any footage from the stages.

I couldn't agree more, I thought there was a mistake when I saw the timeline in the player saying 17mins. They pretty much talked about the day's action without really showing any stage footage. The sort of clips they showed as the sort you'll find on most mainstream channels showing brief clips of the rally in their sports round-up. I wonder if they weren't allowed to or couldn't show any proper footage from Thursday and Friday. Very odd.

[cg7aa]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Itv4 are showing highlights on Tuesday at 8

Awesome, thank you.

[hoffman66]

Am trying to watch it live but the Nigerian streams are so woeful it is not worth it endless buffering.

[Alex Langheck]

Originally Posted by cg7aa

I couldn't agree more, I thought there was a mistake when I saw the timeline in the player saying 17mins. They pretty much talked about the day's action without really showing any stage footage. The sort of clips they showed as the sort you'll find on most mainstream channels showing brief clips of the rally in their sports round-up. I wonder if they weren't allowed to or couldn't show any proper footage from Thursday and Friday. Very odd.

I'm wondering too what's happened. It was always a decent programme with highlights, analysis, etc
They need to show more free to air coverage, not reduce it. A mistake if it's their policy to try to get people to pay to watch All Live......rallying simply isn't a big enough sport. And we wonder why teams can't find sponsors.....

[hoffman66]

Sadly Alex, this is the way sport is going, it's all about money even for coverage. The event this weekend was spectacular, full of incident.

I think rallying is simply just a spectator sport, not a tv on.

[tbtstt]

The Red Bull highlights weren't great, but the timing is still available and there has been a ton of great footage pop up on You Tube over the weekend, so I have been watching that.

Will check out the ITV4 coverage tomorrow. Decent event to kick the year off with, incredible surge from Neuville yesterday and a very impressive start to the year for Evans.

[BertMk2]

Originally Posted by tbtstt

Decent event to kick the year off with, incredible surge from Neuville yesterday and a very impressive start to the year for Evans.

Impressive stuff to start the season - Ogier, Evans and Neuville all squabbling over position (and I assume Tanak will be up there with them too). As expected the M-Sport guys were a bit off the pace (and they didn't get off to a great start did they?). Citroen who?

[hoffman66]

Have to admit the way I keep up now is youtube and ewrc, by far the quickest least intrusive and annoying ways to find out what is going on.

[crossfades]

Tragic weather for the Swedish round but what can one do? I'm glad they still decided to run it, despite being markably chopped off. Hopefully this won't be an issue next year.

Great drive by Evans, he is a championship contender for sure now. Rovanperä with a maybe even more impressive drive for his young age, especially on the very tricky powerstage with mud, gravel and ice. I think Neuville got severely hampered going first on friday and didn't seem to really find the rythm afterwards.

[tbtstt]

Originally Posted by crossfades

Tragic weather for the Swedish round but what can one do? I'm glad they still decided to run it, despite being markably chopped off. Hopefully this won't be an issue next year.

Yeah, glad they managed to salvage something from it: was definitely a mixed bag of conditions!

Originally Posted by crossfades

Great drive by Evans, he is a championship contender for sure now. Rovanperä with a maybe even more impressive drive for his young age, especially on the very tricky powerstage with mud, gravel and ice. I think Neuville got severely hampered going first on friday and didn't seem to really find the rythm afterwards.

I am still hesitant to call Evans a title contender this early: though it is impossible to deny that his performance wasn't superb this weekend. And Kalle was incredible on the power stage. As you say Neuville seemed slow to get going and, by the time he was up to speed, the rally was over!

Solid drive from Tanak, a good result for him after the Monte smash. I see a few comments stating that Ogier is struggling in the Yaris but, given his past performance(s), I wonder if he is just playing the long game and accruing points?

[BertMk2]

Originally Posted by crossfades

Tragic weather for the Swedish round but what can one do? I'm glad they still decided to run it, despite being markably chopped off. Hopefully this won't be an issue next year.

Originally Posted by tbtstt

Yeah, glad they managed to salvage something from it: was definitely a mixed bag of conditions!

A real shame - Sweden is one of my favourite rounds and this year it was a shadow of itself. Glad that they managed to run something but it just wasn't a 'proper' Swedish rally without the snowbanks.

Originally Posted by crossfades

Great drive by Evans, he is a championship contender for sure now.

Originally Posted by tbtstt

I am still hesitant to call Evans a title contender this early: though it is impossible to deny that his performance wasn't superb this weekend.

Great drive from Evans, he seemed pretty relaxed all weekend and certainly seemed to be in control.

Originally Posted by tbtstt

... As you say Neuville seemed slow to get going and, by the time he was up to speed, the rally was over!

Solid drive from Tanak, a good result for him after the Monte smash. I see a few comments stating that Ogier is struggling in the Yaris but, given his past performance(s), I wonder if he is just playing the long game and accruing points?

The championship looks pretty open this year - Neuville, Tanak, Evans and Ogier all in with a good shout. I'd rule Rovanpera out purely on experience - he has the speed but you'd expect some mistakes over the course of the year that will cost him. The Fiesta looks to be off the pace so we can rule Suninen and Lappi out of the fight.

[tbtstt]

Originally Posted by BertMk2

The Fiesta looks to be off the pace so we can rule Suninen and Lappi out of the fight.

Sadly. The Fiesta is still my favourite looking car in the field but, other than an odd podium or two, I can't see M-Sport posing much of a threat to the Championship this year.

Agree about Rovenpera: I am expecting to see him bend a Yaris or two this year, though perhaps we are underestimating him.

[hoffman66]

Still do not understand the tyre rules on this event, it is clear a lot of those stages had minimum ice, some were pure gravel on the clips I have seen, surely running studs there is idiotic, and will cut up the road even more?

[BertMk2]

Originally Posted by hoffman66

Still do not understand the tyre rules on this event, it is clear a lot of those stages had minimum ice, some were pure gravel on the clips I have seen, surely running studs there is idiotic, and will cut up the road even more?

Usually studs are the right call for Sweden - but the warm weather this year obviously caused problems. The studded tyres were the only ones available to the teams so they just had to make the best of it. I suspect the tyres were part of the reason the route was changed so much. I do wonder if gravel tyres were a viable option - on the sections where it was ice and snow they'd not have been much use so probably not.

[Alex Langheck]

It's a winter event (well supposedly) so studded tyres are the selection. No chance of using gravel tyres, which is why the non snow/ice stages were cancelled.

They just about got away with it - and awarded full points for about 1 hour of competitive action.

[S griffin]

Watched the highlights last night. They did well to make the most of what was a truncated event. Great drive by Evans, he’s already looking good for the rest of the season. Maybe he’s not as quick as Meeke was, but certainly has the consistency

Great drive by Rovanpera too, despite the occasional moment of inexperience, he still did well to get that result

[BertMk2]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Great drive by Evans, he’s already looking good for the rest of the season. Maybe he’s not as quick as Meeke was, but certainly has the consistency

I'm not sure of Evans' pace relative to Meeke - it's a tough one to determine as they've not been in the same car but I wouldn't have said Evans was much slower (if at all). Evans definitely looks less error prone though - Meeke was always on the absolute ragged edge and never far from a colossal shunt (much like his mentor - although Meeke never reached the same heights).

[S griffin]

I’d say Meeke had more natural pace, whereas Evans is fast and controlled

[crossfades]

I'd pick Evans any day over Meeke. Heck, Evans has already scored double the podiums over Meeke in the Yaris. He even finished before Meeke in the standings last year despite missing three events while also being in an arguably lesser car.

[hoffman66]

The problem with Meeke always was he was over the limit to be on the pace, and a crash was ALWAYS likely just like Latvala. Evans is the new breed and clearly is showing some pace that was hidden the past few years.

I suspect he has adapted to the Yaris better initially, certainly better than Ogier and Kalle is also showing good adaptation too, but I expected him to go well here, he is a Finn after all.

Also Tanak does not seem at east yet with the Hyundai, so Evans is taking advantage of all of those things. Neuville I still suspect is the biggest threat, these last two events are obscure in many ways, so too early yet to draw straws.