Rally Sweden / Round-up
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Round-up
Volkswagen
Ogier wanted to repeat last
year’s performance when he
gave the Polo R it’s first victory, but it wasn’t to be. On
day one we saw something
we think we will see more
often this year. We baptised
this phenomenon the VWRC.
It is a special class that runs
before the normal WRC’s.
Well the three competitors in
VWRC were changing places
all the time. Especially Mikkelsen was battling constantly with Ogier. But at the end
of day one, Ogier was leading the rally.
him some four minutes to get
his VW moving again. Latvala
took over and won the 15 kilometre long Lesjöfjors stage.
Mikkelsen kept his overall
lead on the leaderboard, but
0,5 seconds is not much.
The battle continued all day
and in the end Latvala was in
charge again, with as little as
four seconds. This proved to
be enough. Mikkelsen went
flat out to diminish the gap
but made some mistakes. So
in the end it was Latvala first
and Mikkelsen second. Ogier
back in sixth did not make it
a clean sweep, but it brought
The next day however things the German manufacturer
changed, Ogier lost some some extra Manufacturer’s
concentration and slid of the points.
road into a snowbank. It took
M-Sport World Rallyteam
Sweden is ‘Mikko-country’ so
the Finnish driver was optimistical. After the rally when he was
just outside a podium position,
he claimed: “I’m more confident
with the car again,” he said. I
feel we now can build back our
strength to weher it was when
we left M-Sport. The other official driver Elfyn Evans was doing
what he came for: gaining experience. He did this till the end
but did not make it completely.
A small mistake threw him out
of the rally. Our question is: how
well does the tandem Mikko/ Elfyn work. Malcolm Wilson clear-
ly drew Mikko into the team as
a kind of mentor to Elfyn. This
seems a good choice. Hirvonen
has a wealth of knowledge and
experience and his usual way of
dealing with people makes him
an excellent choice for his job.
But the problem is that Hirvonen
is struggling a bit. Either with the
new car or with himself, that is
not clear yet. Let’s hope his relatively good result in Sweden can
help him get to grips with the situation today. And that is that he
is not a championship contender
anymore.