ADAC Rallye Deutschland / Who’s hot?
Who’s hot?
Dani Sordo
Citroën DS3 WRC
Abu Dhabi Citroën World Rally Team
18/52
Things change rapidly in the WRC, in
last month’s issue we honoured Dani
Sordo with the NOT award. Now we
reserved the HOT column for him.
So what happened?
Well the sharp-eyed reader already
noticed we were not that negative
about his results. His achievements
in Germany prove us right. During the
weekend several candidates for the
HOT title crossed our minds. Starting
with Latvala, then Neuville but they
all faltered. Although initially Sordo
was not that fast, in the end he was
the one who kept his nerve. When
Latvala slid off the road and Neuville
did the same the Spaniard took the
lead. It was marginal but on the final
day he extended the 0.8 second lead
into a 3 second lead. He lured Neuville into a mistake in a final showdown. For the usually cool Belgian
this resulted in an off road excursion,
that cost him some fifty seconds. “At
least I fought for it,” was his conclusion.
And Sordo? He was awaited by his
father, mother and brother who had
been nailbiting during the thrilling finale. At last the Spaniard got his victory something he had been waiting
for, for a long time. He’s been pretty
close at several occasions (especially on Tarmac) but he was always in
the shadows of a man called Loeb.
Many times the legend was just a little bit faster than Sordo. Sometimes
the man from Spain even had to lift
his right foot in favour of his teammates championship chances. It
earned him the title most loyal team
colleague, but not much more. So
he deserved this hard fought victory
more than anyone else. Even Neuville, but his chance will not be very
far away.
Image: Steven van Veenendaal