Rally Portugal / Rally review
Hirvonen
In the meantime it was Mikko Hirvonen
who seems to have finally found his
rhythm again. At stage seven he grabs
a scratch propelling him into the overnight lead.
Business as usual
On Saturday everything is back to normal. Hirvonen reinvented his fighting
spirit and fought like a lion but it was
not enough for an Ogier in good form,
so halfway the day he is back in front
again and by the end of the day the
Frenchman had built an insurmountable lead again. Meeke’s car was beyond immediate repair and he couldn’t
restart. At Volkswagen they had to
use some very heavy equipment to
straighten Latvala’s battered Polo. A
fork lift truck eventually did the trick
and the Finn could restart. At M-Sport
the mechanics had to do some overtime as well but in the early morning
Elfyn Evan’s car was back in shape
again. Compared to that, re-attaching
a wheel back onto Kubica’s car was
peanuts and the Pole could also restart, only to slide off again on Saturday . For Ott Tanak Saturday was a
bad day. His initial result of the rally
was near perfect and on Saturday he
held a non-expected third place. But
on the third stage of the day the infamous Malhao stage he went off in the
same corner where Latvala went off in
2009. Tanak luckily was bounced back
onto the road but his car was not fit to
start again for the final day of action.
Full house for Ogier
Sunday was more for the record. Ogier’s lead of 38 seconds was enough
and on the Frenchman preserved his
tyres for the final test, the Loulé PowerStage. On this stage he was 3 seconds faster than teammate Latvala
and 4 seconds faster than Østberg so
he could add another 28 points to his
championship’s quest. Mikko Hirvonen
stayed on top of things and was second. Mads Østberg was too fast for
Mikkelsen in fourth. A fine fifth place
was the final result for Henning Solberg who enjoyed himself thoroughly.
Back North?
Perhaps this was the last time the rally
was in the Algarve region. At this moment there are lots of talks about moving north again. For all kinds of reasons
Porto will not be the host city but the
organizers are looking for a suitable
rally HQ north of Lisbon so that classic stages like Fafe and Arganil could
bring back some memories of the original Portugal Rally. In June the organizers hope to know if the rally moves
back north.
16/42
Three different makes completed the podium. Ogier won again (of course) while Mikko Hirvonen refound his groove to take seconds. Mads Ostberg completed the podium for Citroën