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2012 World Rally Championship (wrc)
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(81 posts, started )
#1 - N I K I
2012 World Rally Championship (wrc)
Rallye Monte-Carlo | 17 - 22 Jan 12
Rally Sweden | 09 - 12 Feb 12
Rally Mexico | 08 - 11 Mar 12
Rally Portugal | 29 Mar - 01 Apr 12
Rally Argentina | 27 - 29 Apr 12
Acropolis Rally | 25 - 27 May 12
Rally of New Zealand | 22 - 24 Jun 12
Rally Finland | 02 - 05 Aug 12
Rallye Deutschland | 24 - 26 Aug 12
Rally of Great Britain | 13 - 16 Sep 12
Rallye de France - Alsace | 04 - 07 Oct 12
Rally d'Italia | 18 - 21 Oct 12
Rally de España | 08 - 11 Nov 12

Monte is already behind us, but it showed us yet again that rally is all about avoiding mistakes whilst keeping the pace up and master of them all Loeb showed what he's made of once again. Will he take 9th title in a row, or can someone stop him. Well, Latvala was the only man that could compete at Monte and he did. He even took the lead at early stages. But his luck soon ren out and he was cought out by a silly mistake and trown of the rally. Maybe he should have gone for points at Monte. However the season is quite long and he surely can put up a good fight as long as he stays out of trouble.

Sordo has made a good outing for Mini as the only one from the team with finishing 2nd at Monte, after a long battle with Solberg. Solberg made some wrong tire choices, yet he was able to be multiple stage winner and I wonder if he is going to prevail as Ford no 1 man. Speaking of no1 man, Hirvonen is far from it at the moment. He finished only 4th at Monte, but he took few stage wins at day 4 and he might take a victory or two during the season though.

Ogier went to VW for this season to develop the Polo. He was also rallying at Monte with Skoda S2000 and was in impressive 4th overall, before running into a horrific accident. A man that cought my eye from privateers is certainly Novikov. Russian hauled to 5th in the end in his Fiesta, infront of legendary Delacour.

Surely, there must be people who are following this, at least thru news papers. :P
#2 - boothy
Quote from N I K I :Surely, there must be people who are following this, at least thru news papers. :P

The only time I follow it is if it pops up on Autosport or in my youtube subscriptions (MT89). As Midweek Motorsport would say, "welcome to the world of low grade rallying". No one really cares in the UK any more, no drivers, no TV coverage unless you have Eurosport. I still remember the good old days of FTA coverage with Colin, Richard, etc. fighting it out
#3 - deggis
#4 - N I K I
Quote from boothy :The only time I follow it is if it pops up on Autosport or in my youtube subscriptions (MT89). As Midweek Motorsport would say, "welcome to the world of low grade rallying". No one really cares in the UK any more, no drivers, no TV coverage unless you have Eurosport. I still remember the good old days of FTA coverage with Colin, Richard, etc. fighting it out

Too bad Meeke is not doing the whole season...
I followed Monte over youtube, This channel to be exact.
#5 - MAGGOT
I've watched the first three days of Monte, but only tangentially. I was doing some contract work from home at the time so I didn't give my full attention... I don't like Eurosport's coverage. I prefer the OneHD stuff I usually watch.
#6 - TypeRacing
Good news
Quote from simondebanke@twitter :Stage One Technology to be in #WRC Rally Sweden in full capacity, with our full systems!

#7 - TFalke55
#8 - Hyperactive
#9 - TypeRacing
#10 - 5haz
A continuation of International Rallying's fall from grace, as the sport has been reshaped by commercial interests to become less popular, and now finally completely shafted by these same commercial interests when they face crisis. If this continues much longer all the manufacturers will be jumping off as quick as possible. Its getting to the point where it would be better to scrap it all and start over. So ****ing frustrating.
#11 - Intrepid
Quote from 5haz :A continuation of International Rallying's fall from grace, as the sport has been reshaped by commercial interests to become less popular, and now finally completely shafted by these same commercial interests when they face crisis. If this continues much longer all the manufacturers will be jumping off as quick as possible. Its getting to the point where it would be better to scrap it all and start over. So ****ing frustrating.

I wouldn't blame 'commercial interests' because it's not in the interest of 'commercial interests' for WRC to die. Had WRC been more commercially aware it wouldn't be in such a crisis, maybe. Nascar is one-big racing commercial billboard and despite being just a national series, it's absolutely huge. Nascar is designed to fulfil commercial interests above anything else. Every decision made is to maintain a high amount of viewers which is exactly what commercial interests want.

WRC lacks in many areas. One of the tragic facts is that as a spectator sport it's not very appealing. Maybe 20 years ago when we had Group B and rally was still fresh and exciting. Now, it's pretty dull, and the viewers can't be bothered to tune in. Pretty hard to fix.
#12 - N I K I
Well the commercial side doesn't look too good atm, but competition is very fierce this weekend in Sweden. Loeb made his first mistake this year leaving his teammate Hirvonven to fight out his crazy countryman Latvala over victory. I'm looking forward to seeing some good onboards from JML from this rally. Never seen him rallying on snow from the onboard cam.
#13 - Senninha25
Let's just hope and pray that JML doesn't get too fast for comfort this time round, the excitement of the rally depends on him!

Al though I'm a bit more interested in seeing what Araújo will make out of the works support now
#14 - MAGGOT
It's really hard for me to not know what's going on in Sweden when I keep seeing tweets from the WRC and the drivers. Why did I sign up for Twitter? >

I'll be in Montreal all weekend so I won't get to watch this until next week... If I'm lucky.
#15 - N I K I
#16 - Hyperactive
Yeah but can Latvala keep it on the road? He's been kind of fast but also kind of erratic.
#17 - Senninha25
#18 - TFalke55
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/97869

EBU to take over the coverage of the World Rallye Championship. So the point system will be changed to 12-10-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1

Back to the serious buisness. EBU will produce the pictures and will hold the rights to either sell it or to give it to its members, which are 71 stations across Europe and North Africa and 36 associated stations in 21 contries worldwide.

Personally I hope they will do the same they did when they held the rights for the Olympic Games, where about everything was livestreamed via their website. But I guess it will not happen before they don't agree on a long term contract. But the good thing for now, the production of the pictures for the rest of the season is secured, and there will be constance in the coverage.

A bit of irony in it: TF1 is member of the EBU, therefore Eurosport, with whom the FIA also had negotiations, which ultimately failed, is an indirect member.
#19 - N I K I
Goddamn Latvala hit the rock very early on and dropped a lot of time due to puncture, so it looks like we're set for another Loeb domination rally round...
#20 - Mustafur
Quote from N I K I :Goddamn Latvala hit the rock very early on and dropped a lot of time due to puncture, so it looks like we're set for another Loeb domination rally round...

Fords have really gotten plenty of bad luck so far.

Im a bit dissappointed how slow atkinson is, but i have a feeling the monster team is lacking alot of speed compared to the factory team.
#21 - Mustafur
Does Latvala know how to finish a rally?
#22 - Senninha25
Quote from Mustafur :Does Latvala know how to finish a rally?

In style, yes. Now, making it to the finish, that's a different thing.
#23 - Gougoodthing
#24 - TFalke55
#25 - Gougoodthing
Woops, lol.
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2012 World Rally Championship (wrc)
(81 posts, started )
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