WRC '16 - The Half Time Entertainment

The 2016 WRC has been quite the game so far, looking quite unlike the previous three years in some ways, yet sounding comfortably familiar in others. There have been the usual mix of outstanding individual performances and own goals. Intra-team sniping and unexpected empathy. Astonishing success and epic fails. And as the 2017 season with its changes and challenges heaves into view, this is as good a time as any to cover off a few of the highs, lows and the head-scratchingly unexpected. So let's have at it...

Six Different Winners In Seven Rounds
Finally the tedium of seeing a single marque and a single driver in the "Win" column virtually every round has gone. Regardless of your particular preferences for driver or make, you must still agree that 2016 has been a pleasant departure from the predictability of the past 12 years.

So far we have seen two wins from Ogier, and one win each from Latvala, Meeke, Paddon, Neuville and Mikkelsen. And while the main VW team has three wins to its credit over the two wins from the Hyundai #2 team, Citroen's semi-works effort and the VW2 team victory, the appearance of some machinery sans the VW logo in the winner's circle generates hope that this season will end a lot closer than we've seen for a very long time. Gotta be good for the sport

Way To Push Privateers Out Of The Sport
Ignoring the weirdness surrounding the stewards' decision to penalise Martin Prokop for a gearbox seal infringement which had been present on earlier events (mainly choosing to ignore said weirdness because Martin had already announced his intention to pull back from the WRC to go play in the Dakar and indulge in other pastimes, so it was already moot and the penalty was overturned anyway), the proposed 2017 season regulation that will ban most if not all "gentlemen drivers" from piloting the new-spec cars, is seen by most as a given.

If a privateer team such as Bertelli's fuckmatie squad cannot get their hands on the same spec vehicle as their opposition, they'll have two thirds of three fifths of stuff-all chance of being in the match at all. The FIA/WRC have subsequently let it be known that they're considering imposing their restriction on a case-by-case basis, rather than a blanket ban.

However, without a so-called "Super Licence" style qualification programme in place, the ad-hoc nature of the WRC's proposed regime seems to invite potential unfairness and cronyism. Let's hope they see the merit in a more formal qualification plan if they confirm the implementation of the pseudo-ban.

The '17-Spec Cars Will Be Deadly In The Wrong Hands?
Apparently so.

Yes, you could be forgiven for thinking that surely that also applies to the '16 spec weapons (which mysteriously avoid being banned from privateer use). And you would be correct. Presumably then, you'll be even more dead after mishandling your 2017-spec WRC car, than with the 2016 jobbie. Even though the aero packages, track enhancements and electronic centre diffs of next season's models are expected to make the beasts easier to drive at pace than the current versions.

The vexed question of how the galactically less-skilled WRC2 bods will bridge the newly-embiggerated gap to '17-spec divinity, has forced the WRC steering committee to consider yet another class of competition, this time between WRC2 and WRC, (WRC2+ maybe? Or WRC Minus?) using all the pre-'17 spec WR Car cast-offs that the constructors no longer want or need. Hmmm... not sure that's going to appeal to the likes of VW and Hyundai.

Whatever they decide, the whole notion of the 2017-spec cars being death-traps for anyone but the WRC elite, smacks of bovine effluent. The regs as revealed thus far suggest a measured increase in performance rather than a return to Group B arms-race lunacy.

Can you say "overreaction"?

Jut Like That Old Time Rock 'n Roll
Jari-Matti Latvala looked for all money like he had Argentina in the bag on the Saturday with a demonstration of pace that reminded the unbiased observer of the JML of old. A pity then that the nearly-irresistable force that is the VW Polo R WRC met the immovable object of a largish piece of bedrock in the Finn's driving line with the result that the Polo lost that bout and JM-L lost the rally.

The car's front right strut was smacked upward, piercing the top-mount and bonnet, and destroying the Polo's steering. The spectacular rolls that followed finished the job for the unfortunate crew. Up to that point, he was a shoe-in for the top spot, but instead of scoring his second victory of the season, he was out and history records that Paddon took his first ever WRC win. It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good, as my Mum would say.

Following his Argentina victory, Paddon was in buoyant mood for Portugal, setting quick times and looking strong for a good placing. Unfortunately for the Kiwi, on the second running of Ponte de Lima, his pace was his undoing. Unknown to the WRC contenders, following the first loop, a large hole had opened up on the racing line. This menace was obscured until the drivers were upon it, so all the leading WRC cars were at risk and each one in turn had a moment.

In Paddon's case, his greater speed launched the i20 through the air and into collision with the raised rockface on the inside edge of the road. The impact spun the Hyundai around and it exited the track backwards down a bank, flipping before landing back on its wheels.

The crew evacuated the car just in time to avoid being immolated in a subsequent fire ignited by the i20's hot exhaust, and the Hyundai was totally burnt out. A very big consequence for what was really a tiny misstep. Ott Tanak had the same experience with a very similar result, although with the help of the Kiwi crew, spectators and marshalls, they saved the Fiesta from the flames. Only Mads Ostberg's slightly slower pace had prevented his demise at the same spot.

Tanak was lucky that his Fiesta RS WRC survived, but his luck took a turn for the worse two events later in Poland while leading the rally by 18 seconds over Andreas Mikkelsen. With just two stages left, a puncture robbed him of his first win at the WRC top level, a victory that all who saw his performance agreed would have been a just reward for an outstanding drive over the rally's three days.

One can but commiserate with the Estonian and his DMACK team that they came so close. And M-Sport's Malcolm Wilson must have been gutted in missing out on the Fiesta's first rally win since 2012, a result that the Cumbrian firm sorely needs. At least the pace Tanak showed in Poland will give them great heart for a decent placing in the similar conditions of Finland.

The Resurrection Of Thierry Neuville
The Belgian has seen his fortunes change for the better as the season has progressed and the Hyundai squad has accordingly reaped the benefits of his improved performance. Especially as far as the Motorsport N team is concerned.

So far, both wins for the Korean manufacturer have been by the #20 entry, which, against expectations, have given the N team a healthy points boost. Not what M. Nandan would have preferred, I'm sure, but the same applies to Mikkelsen's win for the VW second team so not so disadvantageous as it seems at first glance.

So far this season, Neuville has bagged 61 points, currently sitting in 7th place which you might have thought unlikely viewing his performances at the conclusion of the 2015 season. So what's changed? According to Thierry, they've finally given him a competitive car.

A mechanical glitch here and there, a wee fuel miscalculation and the occasional less than perfect tyre choice have all conspired to disguise quite how much the Belgian has improved in 2016, but improve he did. A first, a third, a fourth and a sixth all contributing to his renaissance in the World Rally Championship.

At the half-time drinks break, Thierry has shown that he's going to challenge the leaders in the second half. A new, more positive attitude, a faster car, a boost in confidence and the desire to improve his value for the silly season approaching have come together to make him more competitive, more results-focused than we've seen for a while.

Whether or not Thierry is doing this with the team in mind, the benefits to Hyundai Motorsport GMBH will be tangible. But will he stay with the team for another three years? Doubtful. Particularly because much interest has already been expressed by the other teams toward the Belgian and he's heading into the prime years where he'll command the highest salary.

Still, you never know - Hyundai is serious about their WRC ambitions and they're well-funded, so in a bidding war they will be competitive. If they believe their future requires Neuville, then don't count them out. But my gut tells me that the rocky road that is the Hyundai/Neuville relationship has seen too much ego puncturing to navigate easily. We'll know in just a few weeks time, I think...

The Silly Season Arrives Early This Year
So having touched on the topic of factory seats, now seems as good a time as any to take a deeper look. Let's start with VW - because they're the easiest.

Ogier, Latvala and Mikkelsen are all confirmed as driving for Volkswagen Motorsport in 2017. Whether the rules mandate a three car team or the current two-team structure, there will be no driver changes for next season.

However, VW team boss Capito has suggested that their World Champion might retire from the sport should the start order not be changed so that the Frenchman is no longer disadvantaged. Unlikely, given that changes are mooted, and Ogier still has unfinished business in the WRC. But good for talking points...

Hyundai has yet to finalise their lineup for 2017. Paddon is contracted to the end of 2018, Sordo has signed anew until the end of 2018 but Neuville has yet to commit. Hyundai boss Nandan has let it be known that his preference is to have the same crews as for the past two years, meaning Thierry is welcome to remain, but it's up to the Belgian to choose his home for the next two seasons.

Right now, the possibilities are for Citroen and Hyundai to provide berths but there's an admittedly faint possibility that M-Sport could also be in the frame. Toyota-Gazoo looks unlikely at this point in time though.

My bet? Neuville will join Meeke at Citroen. We shall have to wait and see...

Citroen has been adamant that they won't be running a third car in their 2017 campaign. With Meeke confirmed for 2017 and 2018, there will be just a single space for three prospective candidates for the second seat. Neuville, as mentioned, LeFebvre or Breen.

Breen is seen as a bit of an outside chance, talented but not yet a sure bet. Being French, LeFebvre is a favourite to score a place in the French squad - in addition to his speed, the Frenchman has the inside running due to the historical preference by Citroen to promote their countrymen.

If Neuville bags the second drive though, it's not at all unlikely that PH would run a semi-works team for LeFebvre, and perhaps even another car for Breen.

TMR-Gazoo is the big mystery. Here are the drivers who won't be in the 2017 team:
Loeb. Petter Solberg. Mads Ostberg. Thierry Neuville. So, besides Juho Hanninen, Makinen's current favourite, who else might headline the Toyota team's efforts in 2017? So far, the probables seem to be from a trio of talented newcomers to the WRC; Suninen,
Lappi and Tidemund.

Who'll get the seats? It's a coin-flip I'm afraid.

And last, but never to be counted out, M-Sport is developing a 2017 spec car based on the yet-to-be-released 2017 model-year Fiesta. So don't doubt for a moment that Wilson will enter at least two cars next season. But there's a catch...

DMACK tyres apparently approached M-Sport with a deal for next year. What form that deal takes is unknown but speculation is rife that in turn for M-Sport using DMACK's tyres exclusively, the tyre maker will fund a two-car WRC challenge in '17.

But this is where it gets complicated - both Ott Tanak and Elfyn Evans were dumped from M-Sport's 2015 main squad and were replaced by Mads Ostberg and Eric Camilli. It seems likely that the DMACK deal would require Tanak and Evans to take over the main team seats from Ostberg and Camilli, leaving both of those latter drivers either out of a job, or at best, in a second string M-Sport team. Not a happy circumstance for either driver.

But what if M-Sport doesn't go for the DMACK deal?

DMACK could run its own team again, this time with both Tanak and Evans, in whatever car they can negotiate. And that isn't necessarily a Ford. In fact, Citroen has the head start in development to be in a position to build six cars prior to the Monte - one each for Meeke, Neuville, Lefebvre, Breen, Tanak and Evans if they so wished.

There's no doubt that the Citroen Racing firm would be able to run three cars if it felt the need, and the semi-works PH Sport team could do the same. Or Citroen could stick to two cars while PH Sport could run a team with Tanak, Evans and Lefebvre.

Of course, DMACK have a history with M-Sport - Tanak in the Fiesta RS WRC and Evans in the R5 version - so it's entirely possible that they'd stick with the Cumbrian constructor. Probable, in fact. But so far it's certainly not a given.

Like I said, the silly season is early this year.

WRC '16 - ¡Ay Caramba! in Mexico...

First points, first podium, first win for Jari-Matti in 2016

 The sun is going down over Guanajuato as I begin to type this, the dust has already settled, the post-rally fiesta has begun in earnest. And the man with the biggest grin is Jari-Matti Latvala. After two disastrous previous events where the Finn failed to score a solitary point, the win in Mexico has turned his fortunes around - with the second placing on the power stage, a nice little bonus. Latvala is back in the game.

He drove what is as close to a faultless rally as it's possible to humanly do, and he deserved the top podium step. Sébastian Ogier, coping as usual with road-sweeping duties, took as many risks as he was reasonably able to, but with Jari's optimal road position, it was always a tall order for the World Champion to beat the Finn. That needed mistakes from Latvala that for once in quite a while he simply didn't make. This was as close to the perfect drive as one could ask for and bodes well for his remaining performances in 2016.

WRC '16 - Did gambles pay off on the Monte Carlo?

If you read my previous post on the subject of the Monte, you'll know that it had a gambling metaphor, and deliberately so. The form guide I offered suggested that of the five names put forward, three of those would appear on the podium. A bit rash, you might think given the notoriety of the event's suseptibility to fickle climatic conditions.

As it happens, my punt paid off. No, not in the sense of financial windfalls that you might expect if I had the 'nads to put my money where my mouth is. More in the sense of "this is a very likely outcome because I am paying attention" instead.

Obviously there are lots of impossible-to-foresee random events that can influence the results of any given rally, so sticking a hand up and making predictions is a good way to get egg all over one's face. Still, there are clues as to how a rally will play out if you care to look and sometimes things even happen in line with what might actually be expected. Rarely, I admit, but...

However, the majority of people reading this blog would rather not work it out in advance and would prefer the outcome to be a surprise. And so they should. A surprise ending is almost always preferable to one which is predictable. So it's fortunate that very few of this blog's readers took my picks as anything but guesswork, promptly ignored them, or forgot that I'd ever made them. That's blogging.

To the three who messaged to point out that they were impressed that the form guide was so accurate, their initial reaction was ''well done, dude". But that was almost immediately countered by "Actually, I could have made those predictions". 20/20 hindsight? Perhaps, but it wasn't so much about which of the fifteen possibles would podium, as it was who would not. But having said that, any half-knowledgeable fan could figure it out if they have a mind to.

The thing is, most don't have a mind to. They prefer that surprise ending.

Betting against the odds...

There were other gambles being made on the Monte, by far the most influential being the choice of tyres. You could have Super Soft slicks, Soft slicks, Winter treads, and Winter treads with studs. The specific scenarios that would suit each tyre type are quite obvious, and I'm no tyre engineer so I'm going to leave that as is, other than to add that each has its strengths and weaknesses.

The thing about Rallye Monte-Carlo is it's curious ability to offer a mix of road conditions that make it literally impossible to take with you the "correct" tyres for any particular stage. A competitor can (and will) encounter ice, black ice, snow, slush, wet tarmac, dry tarmac and mud in a single stage. And unless you're Sébastien Ogier, your choosing the right tyres for the two or three stages that you're equipping for is next to impossible. You can only carry six with you, after all.

So, you look at your pace notes and check your meteorologist's predictions and stare at the ice crew's recent reading of the actual surface, then try to imagine what that stage will really be like when you arrive in it, most of the time after other competitors have slithered around it dragging snow and water and ice and mud across places where you didn't even have any concept of the road surface condition at all.

Then you most probably just copy the choice of a competitor who you think is "in the know" instead. See? It's a gamble. But sometimes gambles pay off.

Take Andreas Mikkelsen on stages 9 and 10 of the Monte. Instead of loading up with the combination chosen by his teammate and tyre-choice-voodoo-practitioner Seb Ogier, the Norwegian chose to run four studded tyres and two softs. The first stage was mostly devoid of ice or snow. So two of his tyres were inevitably studded, and as everyone knows, studded tryes don't like tarmac. Which in turn meant that he would bleed time to his competitors on that stage while shedding many of the precious studs that he gambled on benefitting from on the second of that pair of stages.

But that gamble also allowed for having four studded tyres available for the second of the two stages (SS10), though admittedly two of those tyres would be somewhat the worse for wear by then. On a stage which was predominantly ice and snow, they would afford Mikkelsen more grip and therefore better traction, braking and handling than would be available to any of the other drivers with their meagre two studded tyres.

And how did that work out for him?

Meh, as it happens. Despite Andreas's winning margin on the shortish 17.13km SS10 being a whopping 43.9 seconds, he had previously dropped 1:13.5 to the rally leader on the much longer 51.55km SS9. That's a net loss of 29.6 seconds vs Sébastien's effort. A brave throw of the dice it must be said, but given the extra length of the first stage where he would necessarily lose time to Ogier over each and every km, it does seem that Andreas hadn't thought that particular game of chance through as well as he might.

But credit for the innovation at least.

Sometimes backing the outsider is the smart move...

Citroen's unofficial entry featured lead driver Kris Meeke and WRC top tier newbie, Stepháne Lefebvre, with the "smart money" on speedster Meeke to podium. Unfortunately for the Ulsterman, his thrilling battle with the VW #1 ran its course prematurely courtesy of a rock which smashed the sumpguard of the DS3 WRC into the gearbox and causing Kris's retirement from the rally.

One of those random events I mentioned earlier.

But despite Lefebvre having an event punctuated by a crash, a moment or three and some spins, the young Frenchman took fifth overall at the finish, his best effort since his arrival in the WRC. In the atrocious slippery conditions, in just his third start on the Monte, Stepháne beat some more-fancied and more-experienced opposition. A little luck here and there of course, but also a well-judged drive for the most part.

Lefebvre himself didn't gamble to any great degree - just the same "wiggle the steering wheel and hope" approach that his fellow competitors indulged in at some point on virtually every stage - so for the real gamble here, we must turn to team boss Yves Matton. Sure, the Citroen boss already had his eyes on Lefebvre as a future member of his main team, and this year's semi-privateer status gave him an out if needed, but despite earlier statements that Stepháne was a bit undercooked for the big time, he put the youngster into the DS3 WRC on a hunch.

And that 5th overall placing means Matton's hunch has paid off handsomely.

Nobody following the Monte could doubt that this inexperienced young Frenchman has what it takes to be a future contender, and maybe not too far into the future either. Sure, his performances have shone on the seal thus far, but it'll be interesting to see how his gravel performances improve in parallel with the tarmac performances of the gravel specialist, Hayden Paddon.

Paddon was another gamble, Michel Nandan's in this case, but he too has shown that an outsider bet can pay big dividends. It's a fantastic thing that the bosses of big WRC teams are prepared to park the safe options and take a decent punt. They deserve the windfalls that may just head their way.