Rally Australia / Rally review
Meeke on schedule
Meeke has a flying start and resides
in second place. Then he starts losing
some time and ends up fourth, in front
of Latvala and Østberg. It’s Friday now,
so he seems to be going according to
plan (or should we say according to
his promises to Matton?) But then on
Saturday’s first stage things go terribly
wrong. Meeke explains. “I went into a
relatively slow corner but braked just a
little bit to late the car went wide and
touched something that kicked the car
off the road at a really slow speed. Unfortunately we ended up on a slope going down. Therefore we couldn’t stop
and after hitting something we started
to roll. Before we stopped we were so
far down that we could not get back
onto the road.” Yves Matton was not
amused. “This is not what we agreed
upon,” he said ominously. “I need some
time to evaluate this…”
Meantime Hirvonen and Neuville fight a
fierce battle but the Finn’s experience
was too much for the young Belgian
who drove sensibly by just staying in
touch with his rival. He did not risk everything by trying to outpace his rival.
cool and does what he has to do. He
wins the Powerstage and another three
extra points. Ogier finishes fastest but
Mikko Hirvonen loses almost a minute
due to a flat tyre. Neuville passes the
Finn to be second and Ogier in the process misses one essential point in his
quest to be World Champion. To be
continued in France.
Neuville once again (for the fourth consecutive time) is the runner up and Hirvonen fills the last step on the podium.
And Meeke? After some extensive
work by his service team his car is fit to
race again. But again Lady Luck is not
in the hot seat. After going a bit wide
again his right hand rear wheel hits
something and spontaneously breaks
off. A proper seat in a WRC team seems
further away than ever… Latvala had
problems getting into the rhythm and
was struggling behind the leaders. On
stage 12 he had a puncture and though
he came back rather fast he could not
really fight with the top and ended up
being fourth. Local hero Nathan Quinn
did an excellent job by finishing in the
top ten. Much tot the delight of his fans
from the Coffs Harbour region.
“So that’s it,” everyone thinks. Virtually
Ogier is the new World Champion. But
then there is the Powerstage. Ogier is
A final stage puncture ruined Hirvonen’s chance of second and dropped him to
third.
38/52
Despite winning, Ogier was not as happy as he would have liked. If it wasn’t for
Hirvonen’s last minute puncture he would be champion already.
Neuville continues his second-place streak, four in a row now. When will he do one
better for the first time?