WRC Short Take: Rounds 1-5
The World Rally Championship is already well underway; already five events have come and gone. The season started on the sunny coast of Monte Carlo, and then shifted to the cold snowy locales of Sweden. The championship jumped across the Atlantic for the Corona Rally Mexico. The last two rounds returned to Europe for the Spanish Rally Catalunya and the French rally the Tour De Corse.
The season opened with one of the oldest rallies in the books, the Rally of Monte Carlo. Located on the southern edge of France near the Alps, this tarmac rally has been the season opener for the past few years. This is always considered a difficult rally because of the differing stage climates. Some of the stages are low and near the coast where it is warmer, but there are also a number of higher altitude mountain stages where the temperatures can drop quite a bit. As such, a proper tire choice can be the difference between victory and defeat. The current world champion, Sebastian Loeb, took the lead on day one in his Citroen Xsara, but Marcus Gronholm in his WRC Focus RS was right on his tail. The other top running hopeful Petter Solberg could not keep the pace in his Subaru Impreza due to poor tire choice on the morning stages of the first day. An off for Sebastian Loeb, an uncharacteristic fault for him, gave Gronholm the lead which he held onto until the end of the rally. Toni Gardemeister rounded out the top three running a privately entered Peugot 307 WRC car.
Moving to the cold snow covered stages of Sweden proved an exciting change of pace due to it being the only snow rally of the year. Marcus Gronholm led the charge from early on and fought to keep the lead away from Sebastian Loeb. Early on, Gronholm’s teammate, the young Hirvonen was rounding out the top three, but technical problems forced a retirement. Again Petter Solberg rued his bad luck when he had a driveshaft break over a jump during the first stage of the rally, putting him out of contention; he never made it back into the points scoring positions. The real excitement of the weekend came from the battle for third between two privately entered Mitsubishi Lancers driven by Daniel Carlsson and Gigi Galli. They traded third place no less than 10 times over the course of the second and third days of action. In the end, Daniel Carlsson, the hometown hero, came out on top on the final stage to take back third from Galli. Gronholm held the lead till the end with Loeb settling into second place during the second day.
With the crossing of the Atlantic to Mexico, the WRC saw its third round on its third new surface, gravel. Rally Mexico is famous for its high altitudes, jumps, and high speed sections. Finally, Petter Solberg was able to charge for the lead and leaped to first on the first day where he was barely able to hold off Sebastian Loeb. Unfortunately his pace couldn’t last the entire weekend and on the second day he had to cede first position to Loeb. Gronholm had an off on the first day and never recovered his time, only managing to take one point away from the rally Mexico. Third place was occupied by Manfred Stohl. This rally is where Loeb overtook Gronholm in the driver’s championship and where Petter scored his first points of the season.
Upon returning to Europe, the rally also returned to the tarmac surface for the Spanish Rally Catalunya. This is a very technical rally on narrow roads with lots of cuts; a term for when a corner can be cut by leaving the pavement and cutting across the inside of the corner. This often drags dirt and gravel onto the tarmac setting the lines for future drivers. For most of the weekend it looked like it would be a Citroen 1-2-3 with Loeb in the lead, former world champion Carlos Sainz’s protégé Daniel Sordo in second and Xavier Pons holding the top three positions. Unfortunately due to that gravel being dragged onto the stage, Pons took a cut and slid right off the road and down a hill forcing him to retire, which allowed Gronholm to move into third. The best that Petter Solberg could manage was seventh place due to his Pirelli tires not being up to the task, as opposed to the BFGoodrich tires that most of the other teams use. Sordo, the JWRC champion, was very pleased to take second in his home rally and was generally considered to be the star of the weekend for his consistently fast performance.
In the previous year during the Tour de Corse, Sebastian Loeb managed to win every single stage and secure his victory in the driver’s championship. This year Loeb led the charge with Gronholm close behind him again. Sordo put in a solid effort and held onto third despite serious contention from Ford’s Mikko Hirvonen. Their battle for third mirrored Carlsson and Galli’s battle in Sweden with the two trading positions repeatedly over the course of the weekend, but again in the final stage, Sordo came out on top and took third.
It has been an exciting season so far and after five rounds the driver’s championship has Loeb leading with 46 points, Gronholm in second with 35, Sordo in third with 20, Manfred Stohl has fourth with 13 points and Petter Solberg back in fifth with 10 points. It is early in the season, but the two-time world champion Sebastian Loeb has already settled into his pace and is on his way to a repeat.
Look for Gronholm and Solberg to be on the charge the rest of the season to try and prevent Loeb from taking the driver’s championship for a third year in a row. It will also be worth watching the young drivers who are new to the WRC, Daniel Sordo of the Kronos Citroen team, Mikko Hirvonen with BP Ford, and Chris Atkinson of Subaru. The old favorites of Loeb, Gronholm and Solberg are going to need to watch their back if they hope to be the top drivers in the upcoming years.
The next rally will be across the Atlantic for the final visit to the Americas, with the Rally Argentina. Known for its water splashes and rough gravel stages, it will be a place for Petter Solberg to mount an attack to get back into the championship, and the same goes for Gronholm as a place to close the gap with Loeb. It is going to be an exciting rally, which starts on Friday April 27th and will run until the 30th. Look forward to a report of each day’s action!