Rally Sweden / Rally review
Drama on day two
The next stage was Lesjofors a famous stage
that claimed two topclass casualties. The first
one was rallyleader Sebastien Ogier. In an unfamiliar spell of reduced concentration he slipped
into a snowbank and lost more than 4 minutes.
“It was a stupid mistake,” he commented, and I
can only blame myself”.
ment scheme of the i20.”
Hyundai’s development scheme
The second driver to get caught by Lesjofors
was Neuville. He banged his Hyundai into a rock
and broke the suspension in the process. He did
reach the end of the stage but could not continue
after that. “This is no surprise to me,” admitted
the Belgian. “I took a chance when I joined the
team. I knew the car was not fully developed so
this was to be expected. It’s part of the develop-
Suspension problems
The engineers responsible for the suspension
of the Hyundai have themselves a job to do. It
looks like the suspension assembly is not yet
strong enough for the kinds of impacts a World
Rally Car has to endure. It’s hard to prove but
apart from the Monte incident where Sordo had
an electricity problem all other incidents were
related to the suspension, a problem Volkswa-
Not much later Hänninen followed on the retirement list. It was on the second run of Lesjofors
when there was a similar incident to what happened to Neuville. “I clipped a rock,” said Hänninen. Then the right hand front wheel came
lose.”
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Ogier made a rare mistake, ended up in a snowbank and lost 4 minutes.
gen also encountered in the early stages of last
year’s championship.
The second day continued with the VW boys fighting for the honours. Ogier won nearly all stages,
apart from the first running of the Hagfors sprint
and the Karlstadt Superspecial. Henning Solberg
won the first one. He thoroughly enjoyed himself
being back again on the WRC stages.
Another Norwegian Andreas Mikkelsen won the
other stage. For him this was not enough to secure the provisional lead in the rally. Fellow VW
driver Latvala had passed him on the Østberg
favourite Rämmen. Østberg was also doing well.
He preceded Mikko Hirvonen who was fourth.
Hyundai is fighting through teething troubles, but making progress.