Rally Guanajuato Mexico / Rally review
But the fact that the rally runs through a busy town
makes it a real Fiesta. And the drivers therefore
like it. Ogier was 0,3 seconds faster than second
man Ott Tanak, who made clear he was there and
a force to be reckoned with even in an R5 specs
car.
Atko
The only driver with problems here was Chris Atkinson. Just one hundred metres into the stage
his Hyundai i20 came to a halt. “I had to reset
the car and then it started again. I have no clue
as to what it was, because after that the car ran
normally again, but it cost well over 20 seconds
to get rolling again,” the new Hyundai recruit said.
No further drama’s this stage so the drivers could
prepare themselves for the real rally to start tomorrow. On the menu they found 10 stages on
the mountain roads east of Léon.
Problem Friday
The first day of real competition was drama
packed. It started with dust problems on the first
morning stage. Visibility came to almost zero and
that caused for example Mikkelsen to lose some
time after hitting a rock. Ogier was fastest but was
threatened heavily by Mads Østberg who took
over the lead after stage three, only to lose this
position again after the second passing of the El
Chocolate stage. He lost quite some time there
because Ogier simply was too fast. “I couldn’t find
the right rhythm,” he explained.
Casualties
As we said earlier Mexico is no terrain for debutants.
Not so smart
Mikkelsen was the first one to notice that: on the third
The distance between him and Ogier is now just stage he went off and broke his suspension. That
under 17 seconds but this could have been less. meant his first day of Mexico was over depriving him
This time co driver Jonas Andersson was to blame from gaining the ever so important experience.
Ostberg‘s car suffered from overheating forcing him to slow down a little.
24/42
as he forgot to take off the protection shield of the
radiator. This shield is used during road sections
to keep the engine at the right temperature for the
stage to come. However during stages you don’t
want that on your car because the engine might
overheat. “He told me just before we were to start
the stage,” Østberg said. “So I decided to take
some precautions by driving a bit slower. It was
only a short stage so the time loss would be bearable. When we finished I told him he was not too
smart (in different words though...) and that was
it. We have to carry on now.”
Hyundai splashed their way to their first podium finish with the i20 WRC.