Rally-eMag 038 June 2016

Issue 38, June 2016

Mikkelsen’s joy tanak’s tears

Sardinia

poland

ypres

the road to china pt. V / chewon lim & martijn wijdaeghe / Scottish Rally BRC / Nicky Grist stages BRC / Vechtdalrally drc

Ott tanak, poland

#therewillbeanothertime

camilli-veillas, poland

#boop

Image: Steven van Veenendaal / Rally-eMag

latvala-antiila, sardinia

#clearfortakeoff

Image: Erik van ‘t Land

ostbe

rg-fl

#got

oene

, sard

dust

inia

?

Image: Erik van ‘t Land

Rally-eMag June 2016 / Contents

This month Who made it?

Publisher: Rally-eMag Words: Steven van Veenendaal, Harry van Veenendaal.

Photography: Erik van’t Land, Andy Crayford, Harry van Veenendaal, Steven van Veenendaal, PR.

Who helped?

Logo design: Minse Blom Backcover artwork: Dam Charles Distribution: Issuu.com

Who we thank!

PR Photography from: Peugeot Sport, Hyundai Motorsport, Citroen Racing, FIA ERC, Volkswagen Motorsport, M-Sport, Red Bull Media Pool.

How to reach us?

Email: info@rally-emag.com Web: www.rally-emag.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/ emagrally Twitter: @emagrally Issuu: www.issuu.com/rally-emag

WRC rally italia sardegna

wrc pmz rally poland

INTERVIEW picking up the pace

Erc kenotek ypres rally

Feature the road to china

Tanak in Tears

Chewon Lim & Martijn Wijdaeghe

Freddy’s Playground

Part 5 - Sven Smeets’ 1999 experiences

Page 8

Page 20

Page 24

Page 40

Page 56

6/70

Neuville is back too!

Rally d’Italia Sardegna / Review

rally italia sardegna

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based in: alghero Date: 9-12/6/16 number of stages: 19 Shortest stage: Ittira Arena show 2 km longest stage: monte lerno 44,26 km total stage distance: 325 km Surface: Gravel

Rally d’Italia Sardegna / Review

neuville is back too!

Last rally we said that Kris Meeke was back. He however will not compete the complete championship this year. Thierry Neuville does so; yet before Sardinia Meeke had more championship points than Neuville. After Sardinia this situation has changed again. A near perfect run over the very bumpy, rocky and hazardous Sardinian stages brought the Belgian what he had been hoping for since Germany 2014: his second WRC victory. So in that field he is now equal to Meeke again and we can therefore rightfully say Neuville is back, hopefully to stay.

Words: Harry van Veenendaal

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Images: Erik van ‘t Land

Rally d’Italia Sardegna / Review

Rally week in Sardinia started with a friendly football match between several WRC teams who were in a life size inflatable table football pitch. It made good pictures and good publicity for the Hyundai sponsored UEFA Euro 2016 football tournament. Eight of the tournament’s participating countries also host a WRC event so there is quite a bit of interest within the WRC fraternity. Hyundai drivers Thierry Neuville, Dani Sordo, Hayden Paddon and Kevin Abbring, as well as Sébastien Ogier, Jari-Matti Latvala, Andreas Mikkelsen, Mads Østberg, Eric Camilli, Ott Tanak, Martin Prokop and Henning Solberg proved that sportsmen in any sport are alike: they want to win! It’s an example of the friendly way the teams get on together and a good example

of the spirit of WRC. The true spirit however started later in the week when the real competition started. Hyundai was still recovering from the blow they got when Hayden Paddon’s car was completely destroyed by the fire in Portugal. On the other hand they had the sweet memory of the very good result of last year when Paddon and Neuville took second and third place here. Sebastien Ogier was fastest in shakedown, but as we know this doesn’t mean he can do the same during the actual event when the loose gravel he has to sweep being first on the road will bother him. During shakedown Mads Østberg was just 0.1 second slower, followed by Ott Tanak.

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Good or bad?

The issue discussed most is still starting order. Opposition leader against the current ruling is Sebastien Ogier. And more and more there are people who are reluctant to admit that perhaps the ‘punishment’ of being the leader in the championship is a bit too harsh. Others however look at the spectacle the sports now provide. After Ogier, Latvala, Paddon and Meeke, Neuville is now the

fifth consecutive winner in the six events of this year’s WRC competition. So is that good or bad?

The best driver, Ogier, is still on top of the charts but the spectators have the feeling he really has to fight for it, as there are other contenders too. In their eyes this will make him an even more heroic champion. And heroes are what the championship needs.

Henning Solberg is always in for a bit of fun, though he does prefer his rally car to a giant inflatable fussball table.

Abbring got another opportunity to show his pace but was unlucky again with a broken prop shaft before the first proper stage.

The battle began on Thursday evening when the drivers had to fight head to head in the Ittira arena. Ogier was quickest leading Ott Tanak and Jari Matti Latvala by 0.3 seconds. Kevin Abbring and Andreas Mikkelsen also scored the same time, 0.3 seconds behind Latvala.

But the real proceedings of course did not start until the next morning.

It began very badly for Dutchman Kevin Abbring. Even before the start of the first morning stage, he broke a prop shaft so he only had front wheel drive on his 2015 spec Hyundai i20. Latvala and Paddon opened the skirmishes by scoring first and second time. On the next stage Ogier proved he was fighting hard and took a scratch with Neuville and Østberg close by. It was after that stage the epic battle be-

tween Belgium and Finland started.

Neuville was faster on Castelsardo the third stage of the morning but Latvala took over the overall lead from Ogier. Neuville followed 0.8 seconds later. Paddon lost just over fifty seconds after he hit a bank.

Last year by now he had been leading the rally, this year he wasn’t so lucky as on stage 7 he went of bending his NG i20 in such a way he had to retire from the rally. “I can only say I’m sorry for the team, it was a silly mistake. I was frustrated that we lost so much time through a spin and the resulting damage to my suspension then we had this off and that was it.” Meanwhile at the top Neuville and Latvala had been swapping the lead almost every stage.

Trigger happy The Stewards in Sardinia, chaired by former Rally Germany executive Waltraud Wünsch, seemed a bit trigger happy with three high profile fines during the Italian WRC round. Of course they were all for infringements against the regulations. Before the start of the rally Neuville was handed a € 5.000 fine for speeding during recce, after two earlier warnings, so no discussion about this Steward’s deci-

sion. Another punishment was for Hyundai Motorsport. Their car, as the Steward’s decision indicated, ‘did not comply with ‘the homologation form regarding the rear side windows’. No exclusion, as was the case when Ford had a similar issue some years ago, but a hefty € 50.000 fine. Martin Prokop was the last ‘victim’; he got a five-minute penalty for breaking the seal on a part of the transmission line.

But starting from stage seven, Neuville took the lead and widened the gap by winning six stages in a row. So at the end of the Friday Neuville was leading Latvala by eleven seconds.

A Hyundai was fastest on the first Saturday stage, but it wasn’t Neuville. It was Kevin Abbring who recorded his first WRC scratch.

This prevented Eric Camilli from recording his first ever scratch!

Camilli’s had to wait till stage 17 before his first fastest time. For the rest it was a bit of a repeat of Friday. Neuville initially increased his lead by a marginal 0.6 seconds but Latvala clawed back to just under three seconds, by the end of the day however Neuville proved to be the faster one and was leading Latvala by 16 seconds. Neuville was obviously happy: “This thrilling battle with JariMatti is a lot of fun, and we have to see what tomorrow brings.”

Latvala however still had a lot of fighting spirit: “I will be trying to close the gap to Thierry Neuville.

It is all to play for – including the win!” Three drivers won the remaining four stages on Sunday and Latvala wasn’t one of them.

Neuville won two, Camilli one and Ogier the PowerStage. That last win was quite spectacular. The six kilometres of the Sassari stage had deteriorated after the first

passage. There was a lot of loose sand. Ogier almost got stuck in it.

“I couldn’t steer my car into the corner, it simply went straight on,” he explained. But an all-or nothing drive prevented Kevin Abbring from getting his second scratch.

He was a delighted second 0.6 seconds behind Ogier. But the overall winner was Neuville, his second career win and Hyundai’s second win this year. It was an expensive but joyful weekend for them.

TOP: A great result for Hyundai and Thierry Neuville, who bagged the second WRC win of his career.

MIDDLE: After another difficult roadsweeping weekend, Ogier was finally unleashed at the Powerstage to claim three valuable points.

BOTTOM: A bit of history for Kevin Abbring who recorded his first WRC stage win and also became the first Dutchmen to ever do so.

Rally-eMag

Your monthly dose of WRC reports, news and of course the best images of the most exciting sport on the planet.

We strive to bring you the best possible emag about the WRC. To be able to do so we need your support!

Check out our advertisers, without them, there can be no Rally-eMag! Sign up by sending us a mail with ‘subscribe’ in the subject at info@ rally-emag.com.

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Rally d’Italia Sardegna / Round-up

There was a feeling of anticipation at Volkswagen. Of course this was related to the following event but it was also because their number one driver Sebastien Ogier, or rather his wife Andrea Kaiser was due to give birth to their first child. Ogier had planned the birth to be between Sardinia and Poland but not even Seb can plan everything.

So a plane was kept on standby at the airport to enable Ogier to fly back to Munich the moment this should become necessary.

The father to be was given special permission by team principal Jost Capito to leave the rally for this very special occasion.

In the end Seb’s planning had been OK as baby Tim was born on the Tuesday after the rally.

Congratulations from us at Rally-eMag for Andrea, Seb and of course Tim. His result in Sardinia was as he predicted before the rally: a podium, was going to be the best he could get. And he did, he finished on the third step. Not after winning the PowerStage, of course.

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The head to head battle between Jari-Matti Latvala and Thierry Neuville was highlight of this event. It’s not often you see such close battles. Unfortu-

nately he could not fight flat out on Friday as he had a technical issue with a differential. Neuville then, in one stage, almost made up all the time Latvala had gained on the previous stages back and ruined Latvala’s Saturday fight back. Latvala thinking of the points, both for his employer a for himself, settled for second. This second place, plus the point for a third place on the PowerStage brought him some good points. Now 12 points separate him from Dani Sordo who is lying second in the championship right now. World Championship being almost certainly out of reach, runner up seems to be his best chance.

Andreas Mikkelsen is ten points closer to the championship’s runner-up position and so the battle in the VW camp is still on but a zero point score in Italy didn’t help. But he had actually been fighting for the points with Ogier and Østberg. However if you’re close to the limit, mistakes are always near. In this case it was a large rock that broke something in his right hand suspension. It was game over for the day. On Sunday he settled for a test drive to 13th place.

Volkswagen Motorsport

Roun

Hyundai Motorsport

nd-up

The weeks before Sardinia Hyundai had a lot of work. They managed to build a completely new car for Hayden Paddon replacing the one he lost in Portugal. Therefore they must have been unhappy when this car was damaged severely when Paddon crashed again. Apparently the Portugal incident was still in his head because he had problems finding his rhythm. He did score some reasonable times but on stage seven he slid off again and damaged his car beyond immediate repair.

For the team there was however enough to be happy with, the first of course being Thierry Neuville.

The last few rallies he did not have the results he (and we for that matter) hoped for. He had a lot of bad luck and consequently did not have a good feeling at least not for a whole rally. In Sardinia that was different. Of course the starting position helped but he kept on pushing without making mistakes. A high charging Latvala did not bother him and he convincingly won the rally.

Dani Sordo in his turn proves to be an absolute asset to the team.

His consistency is almost frighteningly. For the fourth time in

four rallies he scored a fourth place. And in doing so he not only gathered most of the points for the team but he also gathered enough points to climb to second place in the drivers championship a place he shares with his team that presently also is second.

Kevin Abbring’s second outing for the team started badly. Before the start of the first Friday stage a propshaft broke. With only front wheel drive he nursed his ‘old’ i20 to midday service, losing well over 6 minutes in the process. But he found his confidence again resulting in his first ever WRC scratch on Saturday, followed by a second time behind Neuville.

All kinds of glitches prevented him from repeating these good results. But on Sunday he was feeling very confident. But halfway the first passage of Sassari his engine stopped. A full reset brought the Hyundai back to live but his initial speed was not rewarded. At the second passage of Sassari (then the PowerStage), he posted fastest time, until Ogier stole his second scratch by a 0.6 margin. Still the Dutchman was very delighted as this result earned him his first two 2016 championship points!

Rally d’Italia Sardegna / Round-up 16/70

A week before the start M Sport had a three day test. They started with Mads Østberg at the wheel, the next day they continued with Eric Camilli and on the last day it was Ott Tänak driving in the car.

him some time as an extra spare tyre slightly unbalanced his car so a hard charging Mikkelsen robbed him of fourth place on Friday, Being fifth however was a reasonable start. But at the end of Saturday bad luck stroke again. A rock deFor the second time this year Mal- molished a drive shaft and damcolm Wilson had to skip a WRC aged the engine in such a way his event. His ankle still needed look- rally was over. ing after and therefore he stayed in Cumbria. But he stayed in con- DMack World Rallyteam tact with the team using all modern There are strong ties between Mcommunication channels.

Sport and D Mack That’s for example the reason they are testing His main attention was on Eric together. The most important differCamilli, who is becoming more at ence is the tyre they use. M-Sport ease on gravel. It’s nice to see him uses Michelins and Ott Tanak obvibattling with another relative new- ously uses DMack tyres. As such comer Kevin Abbring. Both of them one of the main tasks for Tanak is claimed their first scratch here. His to develop the tyres. In Sardinia he good times show that Wilson has used an upgraded version of the not been wrong in selecting the gravel tyre. He soon found out the young Frenchman for his team. tyre was very fast as in the first FriFrom Cumbria he was coaching his day stage he was only 0.3 seconds protégé by sending him encourag- behind Ogier who won the stage, ing text messages and Camilli’s however durability is not the strong sixth place delighted him. point yet, as the very abrasive roads ruined his tyres rapidly. On After more than his fair share of Saturday he used his rubber a bit bad luck in the last few rallies more carefully and won stage 11.

Mads Østberg seemed to be back His fifth place was the just award. on track. Once his transmission The Poland stages being less abrawoes were over he was perform- sive then the Sardinian ones might ing again up to his ‘normal’ level. spring a surprise.

An over cautious approach cost

M-Sport World Rally Team

Roun

Fuckmatie World Rallyteam

In Portugal he Lorenzo Bertelli couldn’t compete due to an injury sustained in a football match between friends. Before the rally he had two testing days and his ankle was a bit sore.“But,” as he said. “It did not give me any problem when I was driving, so I will be fit for the rally and my aim is to finish in the top ten. Unfortunately he did not make it further than stage 12 when he crashed. Co driver Simone Scattolin was taken to hospital for precautionary checks but luckily was found to be OK. When Bertelli crashed out he was in fifteenth, so he had not reached his goal yet.

Another driver we often see in an M-Sport car is Henning Solberg. His budget is very tight but every now and then we see him back. Because of this budget Solberg did not have any pre event tests. His shakedown was the only way to familiarize again with the Sardinian stages. In the rally proper however he soon found his speed again and his alwaysbroad smile was showing it. This brought him a six place, which he later had to hand to Camilli who, guided by his teamboss, was finding his rhythm. Still a seventh place is not bad for a privateer.

nd-up

Jipocar Czech National Team

Martin Prokop wasn’t happy: “I feel treated unfairly because of the penalty for breaking the gearbox seal.” he explained after the finish. “I have been saying repeatedly, different rules should apply for privateers. Changing gearboxes and other stuff is too expensive for me. So I repair them, and obviously break the seal. I have been discussing this earlier and it was agreed. But now suddenly they make a point of it. It’s clear the FIA doesn’t want us privateers. Well they won. They won’t be seeing me back in the WRC!” We don’t know Prokop like that he is the always friendly guy, always happy to speak to us. But we know his ideas about privateers, he already shared them with us during an interviewed last year in Poland. He obviously was furious in Sardinia but we hope he’ll come back on his words. We need privateers in the championship too! In a comment WRC Committee president Jarmo Mahonen indicated he could see something in what Prokop was saying and could envisage a rule change if there were a majority.

Overall final classification 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Neuville-Gilsoul Latvala-Anttila Ogier-Ingrassia Sordo-Marti Tanak-Molder Camilli-Veillas Solberg-Minor Suninen-Markkula Kopecky-Dresler Kruuda-Jarveoja

Hyundai i20 WRC VW Polo WRC VW Polo WRC Hyundai i20 WRC Ford Fiesta WRC Ford Fiesta WRC Ford Fiesta WRC Skoda Fabia R5 Skoda Fabia R5 Ford Fiesta R5

3:35:25.8 +24.8 +1:37.8 +2:54.0 +5:26.4 +5:59.8 +6:22.2 +8:57.4 +9:47.0 +13:28.5

Rally d’Italia Sardegna / Standings

2016 FIA WRC Drivers’ Standings 1.

Sebastien Ogier 132 2.

Dani Sordo 68 3.

Andreas Mikkelsen 67 4.

Mads Ostberg 58 5.

Hayden Paddon 57 6.

Jari-Matti Latvala 56 7.

Thierry Neuville 48 8.

Ott Tanak 34 9.

Kris Meeke 26 10. Eric Camilli 22

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2016 FIA WRC Manufacturers’ Standings 1.

Volkswagen Motorsport 178 2.

Hyundai Motorsport 108 3.

M-Sport World Rally Team 90 4.

Hyundai Motorsport N 78 5.

Volkswagen Motorsport Ii 74 6.

Dmack World Rally Team 40 7.

Jipocar Czech National Team 18 8.

Yazeed Racing 4

PZM Rally Poland / Review

PZM rally poland

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based in: mikolajki Date: 30/6-3/7/16 number of stages: 21 Shortest stage: mikolajki arena 2.50 km longest stage: Stańczyki 25,27 km total stage distance: 306 km Surface: Gravel

PZM Rally Poland / Review

tanak in tears Poland is one of the fastest rallies of the season. The nature of the gravel is different from other gravel events. It’s a relatively soft underground that is less abrasive than other surfaces known in WRC gravel events. An excellent playground for Ott Tanak as he proved during two of the three rally days. The first two days brought him happiness the last day tears.

Words: Harry van Veenendaal

21/70

Images: Erik van ‘t Land

PZM Rally Poland / Review

After the very rough and abrasive gravel of Sardinia, the WRC went to Poland. As you can see from the boxed text this is one of the fastest, if not THE fastest rallies in the entire WRC. One man was looking forward to the event, as he told everyone he wanted to go for the in here. This man was Andreas Mikkelsen. His teammate Ogier on the other side was not looking forward so much. His starting position would definitely not help in Poland. But other people were also quite eager to show their potential. No one really thought about Ott Tanak however. Not that he was not considered to be fast but he had not been able to find his true form yet and seemed to be struggling with his tyres. However in Sardinia he had shown his tyres showed good progress and

gave him a lot of grip. Only they did not last long enough, the less abrasive nature of Polis stages however could change this.

Tanak did not show his competitiveness at shakedown yet. Ogier was fastest and Tanak was seventh. But the first signs of Tanak’s speed showed during the Mikolajki SuperSpecial where he was third behind Neuville and Mikkelsen. On Friday morning Paddon won the first stage. Tanak was second, but did take the overall lead. The next stage Mikkelsen passed Tanak and was leading the charge again. It took the Estonian until stage 8 to pass Mikkelsen again. Tanak was fastest overall on Friday, making him a serious contender for overall victory.

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High Speed Poland Poland is well known for its speed.

The relatively flat roads, not to narrow with a smooth surface make it one of the fastest rallies in the championship. Shakedown on Thursday was a good example. Ogier won it with an average speed of 134.58 km/h. On the SuperSpecial speeds were reduced to around 85 km/h. On Friday the speeds were highest with an average of just over 117 km/h. Satur-

day and Sunday brought speeds down to around 113 km/h. The average speed over the whole rally was 113,7 km/h. Taking away the results of the SuperSpecial the average speed would be 118,48. The 21-kilometre Swietajno stage was the fastest competitive stage. Ott Tanak won both runs. The first time his average was 125.83 km/h his second run was even faster with 128.12!

Once again Ogier was on roadsweeping duty and unable to get in the mix.

Tanak was flying and looked set to DMack their first WRC win and MSport (although not in on the official cars) their first win in years.

The others Though Tanak and Mikkelsen are in hot pursuit of each other and are thereby flavouring the competition, they others are not exactly resting on their laurels. The distances are relatively short. On the third place of the leaderboard we find Hayden Paddon who after two non-finishes is desperately looking for a good result again.

Just like Tanak he wins three stages on Friday. With Mikkelsen winning two stages and Ogier one we have a total of four stage winners on Friday.

A bit disappointing are the results of the two official M-Sport drivers Østberg and Camilli. You can’t blame Camilli, he is following orders to gain both experience and confidence but Østberg is another thing.

His tenth place, even behind teammate Camilli is not where we (and what is

more important, Malcolm Wilson) expect him to be.

Tanak Saturday Three stage wins on Saturday morning bring Ott Tanak in a healthy position to start consolidating his lead.

So during the afternoon stages he backs down a little, but another stage win at the end of the day increases his lead to more than 21 seconds.

So for the second day in a row he is the overnight leader in the rally. But Mikkelsen promises a final attack on Saturday “I’m still confident I can win this one,” he smiles at the final service of the day. Hayden Paddon is also within 30 seconds, but he says not be aiming at Tanak’s place on the leader board. Neuville, Latvala and Ogier are probably to far away and can just go for their own result and of course the PowerStage.

Poland next year?

In October 2014 the Rally Poland organizers signed a ten year contract with the City of Mikolajki and the Polish motorsports authority PZM (Polski Związek Motorwy). This secured Rally Poland in Mikolajki for ten years. However the WRC contract expired this year. Nothing is known yet about a renewal of that contract. Grey clouds however are hanging over the event, the first thing being safety. Last year Image: Red Bull Media Pool

there were quite a few remarks about spectator safety. A lot has changed this year but still there is quite some criticism. Another threat is the financial situation. After faithful title sponsor Lotos, left the rally (just like they left superhero Robert Kubica at the same time) So the future unfortunately is far from certain. PZM stepped in this year but if they can continue?

Can he make it?

The rally started with sunshine and high temperatures but Sunday was different. Rain was pouring down and the sandy soft upper soil of the Polish stages changed into treacherous puddles with ever changing grip levels. On the first loop it was as everyone expected. Mikkelsen charging hard took some 2.4 seconds off Tanak’s lead. Ogier and Latvala were before Mikkelsen, who in his turn was 0.3 seconds faster than Tanak. So in the first loop he came 2.7 seconds closer, but the gap still was almost 19 seconds. This to everyone looked like a comfortable margin for Tanak. Though the archaic ‘saying It ain’t over till it’s over’ kept on ringing in the Estonians head.

Then lightning struck. Halfway the second run of the Branowo stage a stone had come uncovered by the rain. The tyre bumping into the rock gets punctured and shatters Tanak’s dream. He does run the PowerStage but his heart isn’t in it anymore. A devastated Tanak reaches the end of the rally. He doesn’t realize a second place is a tremendous achievement. “This is nothing,” he says with tears in his eyes. Only minutes later he gets out of his car and wants to hide from everyone. Sebastien Ogier doesn’t allow him to. He grabs his fellow competitor, starts

patting him on the shoulder and, hugging him, tries to console him. Then Ogier hoists him on his shoulder and takes him for a triumphant walk along his applauding opponents, showing the world what rallying is all about: hard fights among friends!

Mikkelsen took his second victory, again in a thrilling finale. In Spain last year it was Ogier who slid off the road. This time Tanak handed him victory. But Mikkelsen never stopped fighting and in the end was duly rewarded.

Top to bottom: Sometimes pictures say more than a thousand words.

Rally-eMag

Your monthly dose of WRC reports, news and of course the best images of the most exciting sport on the planet.

We strive to bring you the best possible emag about the WRC. To be able to do so we need your support!

Check out our advertisers, without them, there can be no Rally-eMag! Sign up by sending us a mail with ‘subscribe’ in the subject at info@ rally-emag.com.

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PZM Rally Poland / Round-up 26/70

As always Volkswagen displayed big confidence in things to come.

Mikkelsen for example was talking about possible win here and continued to say so even when the odds seemed to be against him. Ogier was reasonably positive: “The gravel is not so bad as in earlier rallies and my confidence is high for Poland. Of course Ogier and his wife Andrea are now the proud parents of his son Tim. Does that influence him? “My new personal situation gives me additional strength. Being a father is even more overwhelming than I imagined”. During the rally things went slightly different than anticipated. The high temperatures of Friday and Saturday left the roads dry, duty and soft. The rain that was originally forecast initially did not come so he was on full road sweeping duties again. Then when he finally was released of these duties on Sunday, the rain came down, making the road completely unpredictable. So his sixth place may be seen as a major achievement. But he is still far in front of the WRC Driving Standings. He holds a 51 point advantage over Andreas Mikkelsen he took second place after his Polish success.

“The stages are very fast and fluid to drive,” said Andreas Mikkelsen before the rally. “I like that and it suits my driving style’. “Our aim is to claw back to the runner up position in the drivers championship and to gain as many points as possible on Sebastien Ogier.” As you can read from our report he succeeded in doing so. However it probably went a bit different than anticipated. He did lead the rally in the beginning and did not really make any mistakes.

However one gentleman from Estonia Ott Tanak did not make mistakes either. He kept on pushing and led Mikkelsen through most of the rally.

It was Mikkelsen’s achievement to keep the pressure on but two short stages before the end he was still behind Tanak. Then faith struck and demolished Tanak’s right front tyre.

This is rallying; the Norwegian must have thought when he ‘cruised’ to the finish not bothering about PowerStage points just keeping what he got: victory.

Volkswagen Motorsport

Latvala wasn’t pleased with his performance. “I found my rhythm far too late”. Indeed it took him along time to really feel at ease here. And some PowerStage points are not enough to make this a good weekend for him.

Roun

Hyundai Motorsport

nd-up

Hyiundai was still relishing their Sardinia win. Especially Neuville was happy he found his groove again. At the same time Hayden Paddon was not so happy. His crash was a serious blow to his confidence. He was hoping for a good return in Poland, a rally well suited to him. Dani Sordo wanted to defend his second place in the driver’s championship so everyone in the team had his own reasons to perform well in Poland.

Best man in Poland was Hayden Paddon. Notwithstanding the burden on his shoulders he showed everyone what he is capable of.

Three scratches on Friday secured him an overnight third place.

He then consolidated this position fending off teammate Neuville on a charge to take over third place.

Paddon was happy it was over. “ I struggled in the conditions this morning. I had no confidence at all. We wanted to secure third rather than pushing for second, but we probably eased off a bit too much, because Thierry came very close”.

Neuville had been fighting hard for the final podium position missing it by just 0.8 seconds. But he lost his possibility for a real fight for victory on Friday. His pace

notes were too slow. So in recce even he misjudged the speeds in Poland. After some adjustments to his notes he recovered from fifth to fourth on Saturday evening after having clinched Ogier in the process. But there were still more almost 16 seconds between him and Paddon in third. His final charge did not bring him a podium but ‘just’ a PowerStage point. So Neuville was happy: “I think apart from the slow pacenotes on Friday we had the perfect weekend!”

Dani Sordo was not happy. Being second in the championship also meant sweeping the road just after Ogier, bringing him stage times around tenth place. He hardly had any moments until the second stage on Sunday. The chicane of confusing hay bales caught him out and moving 450-kilo objects with a rallycar at speed is not a good thing. He limped back to service where the mechanics fixed the car again but on the next stage he clipped a bank and broke his rear suspension.

Still it had been a reasonable rally for Hyundai. Their New Generation i20 proves to be a top performer and on a good day can even be a VW challenger.

PZM Rally Poland / Round-up 28/70

It has been a very difficult weekend for Malcolm Wilson’s team. A Fiesta was leading the rally and the first Fiesta win since September 2012 was only stages away.

But the driver driving it was not an official M-Sport driver. To the contrary Ott Tänak had been ousted last year. Malcolm Wilson must have scratched the back of his head, seeing the results of Tanak and comparing them to the results of his own drivers. But of course Wilson apart from being a good business man is also a true rally lover and commented positively on the achievements of Tanak: “Ott and Raigo were absolutely fantastic this weekend and they deserved to be on the top step of the podium. They missed out this weekend, but they know they can do it and they will bounce back.

Ott is a future rally winner, and he has proven that the Fiesta is a rally winner.”

Polish roads went well. Though he always had his ‘teamorders’ in mind he kept on driving well.

On most occasions he has been faster than teammate Østberg.

However after just having finished the penultimate stage, he hit a tree stump and damaged his rear suspension. With only front wheel drive he crawled to the finish of the last stage and dropped to tenth.

But for Malcolm Wilson this means mission accomplished: “Éric has learnt a lot and the experience that he has gained this weekend will stand him in good stead for the years to come”.

Still it must have been difficult. Of course Camilli is still on a learning curve and we have to say he is doing a good job. They had strict instructions: Stay on the road and complete all stages! And indeed for the Frenchman with his limited experience on WRC gravel. His first encounter with the superfast

Lorenzo Bertelli’s major achievements here were two fifth places in the superSpecial. For the rest it was one rally long struggle with ending in 12th place. At least he finished before Ford Fiesta colleague Henning Solberg (15th).

M-Sport World Rally Team

For Mads Østberg there is another story. For a man of his stature his classification is not good. In a way he was lucky that both Camilli and Lefebvre hit trouble in the final stages of the rally, because that promoted him to 8th, still not in a position where he wants to be.

Roun

Abu Dhabi World Rallyteam

nd-up

In the Citroën camp there was nervous anticipation. Craig Breen and Stéphane Lefebvre represented the French brand through the Abu Dhabi World Rallyteam, but they both knew team Citroën team manager Yves Matton would be monitoring their progress closely.

With Meeke signed up for 2017, there was still a place for grabs.

Both drivers seemed to be equally good. With Lefebvre perhaps a little bi better. Especially when he scored his first ever WRC scratch.

At the end of the first loop of the last day things went wrong when on the Sady stage he went wide.

The rear of his DS3 hit the tree and the impact damaged his rear left wheel. The wheel was still connected to the body one way or another but only just. A small fix at the end kept the wheel in its place and though it wasn’t carrying the DS3 it kept on spinning a bit. So technically he was still on four wheels. The very short distance between stage end and the service helped him. The Mechanics of the PH Sport team did the rest.

They had half an hour to bring back the car in racing condition.

They managed to replace some bodyparts, the suspension and

the gearbox in just 32 minutes.

So Lefebvre could start again with only a 20 second penalty for leaving service two minutes late. At the stage where it all went wrong he dropped from seventh to 15th place. On the remaining two he clawed back to finish ninth with a fourth place on the last stage.

He doesn’t easily give up, that is clear!

Craig Breen had his last competitive outing in a DS3 WRC about half a year ago in Sweden. But he quickly adapted again to competitive action in a World Rally Car. His task was to show Yves Matton that he would be the logic pick for the remaining seat in the 2017 car.

However we doubt whether Yves Matton can make a decision after having seen his two prospects in Poland. You could rightfully say they performed equally. They were pushing each other all of the time but neither made a big gap.

When Lefebvre slipped off on the final day Breen of course took his chance but you could hardly say this was a decisive moment. So we’ll have to wait for Mr Matton to throw the verdict.

Overall final classification 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Mikkelsen-Jaeger Tanak-Molder Paddon-Kennard Neuville-Gilsoul Latvala-Anttila Ogier-Ingrassia Breen-Martin Ostberg-Floene Lefebvre-Moreau Camilli-Veillas

VW Polo WRC Ford Fiesta WRC Hyundai i20 WRC Hyundai i20 WRC VW Polo WRC VW Polo WRC Citroën DS3 WRC Ford Fiesta WRC Citroën DS3 WRC Ford Fiesta WRC

2:37:34.4 +26.2 +28.5 +29.3 +33.8 +40.3 +2:01.4 +3:04.6 +5:12.0 +5:23.1

PZM Rally Poland / Standings

2016 FIA WRC Drivers’ Standings 1.

Sebastien Ogier 143 2.

Andreas Mikkelsen 92 3.

Hayden Paddon 72 4.

Jari-Matti Latvala 68 5.

Dani Sordo 68 6.

Mads Ostberg 62 7.

Thierry Neuville 61 8.

Ott Tanak 52 9.

Kris Meeke 26 10. Eric Camilli 23

31/70

2016 FIA WRC Manufacturers’ Standings 1.

Volkswagen Motorsport 196 2.

Hyundai Motorsport 135 3.

M-Sport World Rally Team 100 4.

Volkswagen Motorsport II 99 5.

Hyundai Motorsport N 78 6.

Dmack World Rally Team 58 7.

Jipocar Czech National Team 18 8.

Yazeed Racing 4

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Picking up the pace (notes) Words and images: Steven van Veenendaal

Feature / Picking up the pace (notes)

Chewon Lim & Martijn Wijdaeghe Hot prospects at Hyundai Motorsport

35/70

We all know the ‘find-a-popstar’ tv shows, from Idols to Country X’s (fill in your country here) Got Talent. But did you know that in Korea there was a similar TV show aimed at finding the next big rally star? The show is called ‘The Rallyist’, sponsored of course by Hyundai, and wasn’t aired in the western world, but we are starting to see some of the results of it, and by the looks of it, there’s plenty more to come. In the last few months, its winner, Chewon Lim, has been competing under the radar in Europe in order to develop as a rally driver with the hopes of making it big in the World Rally Championship.

The Show First off, for all our Korean readers, please forgive some ignorance on my part. I have watched a couple of the shows, but my Korean isn’t quite what it used to be, so some parts were a bit difficult to understand (to put it mildly), but in a nutshell, here’s what it’s all about: Hosted by sportscaster Bae Sung Jae and popular K-pop singer Kwon Yuri the show works like most talent shows do. You start out with an entry, open to anyone over 18 years old, to which no less than 5000 contestants re-

sponded. From that group the initial selection is done through interviews based on experience and motivation, to bring the group down to a number that can actually feature in the tv show, twenty-one in this case. From that point on the entrants were put through various challenges in which they had to compete against each other to prove their (potential) skills as a rally driver but also received training from the likes of Kevin Abbring. Contestants were eliminated on each show until the winner emerged from the finale, Chewon Lim.

Feature / Picking up the pace (notes)

The Prize The show had two main goals, to increase popularity of the sport in South Korea and to ‘plant a seed’ to potentially find a rally star. South Korea is one of the five largest car producers globally, yet no South Korean driver is competing at the highest level. A big miss according to chief producer Park Jae-yeon, who added that in Kim Yu-na and Park Ji-Sung South Korea a world class figure skater and football player, it is time to add a rally driver to that list. Luckily the producers (or Hyundai Motorsport) realize that one does not simply ‘find’ a top rally driver.

Anyone involved in the sport will tell you that the most important thing to be successful, is experience. So rather than giving the winner a WRC car for a couple events and wish him or her good luck, the prize is actually a two-year training and development program under the wings of Hyundai Motorsport.

Development And let’s not forget that rallying is a team sport. Lim may be the winner of the show, he’ll need a capable co-driver on his side to make it to the top. Rather than putting an older experienced codriver in the hot-seat, Hyundai opted to groom another young talent in Martijn Wijdaeghe and give the pair a chance to grow together. Now that the show is over, the real work begins. Lim currently lives in Germany and is following an extensive program together with Wijdaeghe that takes them to all rounds of the WRC and various local events. It gave as a chance to meet the guys at their first two rallies together (the Vechtdalrally and the Ypres Rally) and see what they’re all about.

The first time we see these two names on a side window, surely not the last.

36/70

ReM: First of all, tell us a little about how you ended up here?

CL: I have been driving in Europe in Formula 3 series for the last couple of years so I have been involved with motorsport for some time now. But when I saw the Hyundai competition I got very excited and entered. I won the show and now I am here, doing my first rally.

Media training is certainly part of Lim’s development program, although he seems a natural at it.

ReM: And you Martijn?

MW: I got a call during Rally Sweden earlier this year. Apparently the people at Hyundai had heard some good stories about me! They asked me if I was interested to co-drive Chewon. I didn’t have to think about it very long of course, joining a WRC team has always been my goal in life.

ReM: The (tv) show is over now and the real work begins. Can you tell us what your program currently looks like?

MW: At the moment we are mainly testing and recceing. We do the recce on all WRC rallies to get to know the stages. Also we get together every month for some test sessions.

CL: And now we do our first rally together, and my first at all, in a small event in Holland. After this we will move on to a bigger rally in Belgium, the Ypres Rally.

Rude awakening for any circuit racer, it’s not always sealed surfaces in rallying!

Put an old experienced co-driver in the car with Lim, or add a young, talented and somewhat crazy Belgian guy? Having fun is also important if you want to learn!

ReM: Having circuit racing experience can help you as a rally driver because you’re used to the speed but it can also be an extra challenge as you will need to adopt your driving style. What are the biggest challenges for you?

CL: Rallying is a very different system than racing. My main focus now has to be on the pace notes. It’s quite a complex system. I have to learn how to write them and then also listen to them, process them, trust them. As a racing driver, I was used to learning a track myself, repeating it again and again and then trusting myself. Now I have to listen to and trust someone else. That’s the biggest challenge for me at the moment.

MW: He has to learn to listen! (laughs) Of course that is the biggest challenge probably for anyone. Luckily Chewon speaks English very well so we can communicate very well. We have good chemistry in the car and it’s getting better all the time.

CL: It is difficult though when you approach a blind corner, and he says it is flat, but you cannot see it… (grins) ReM: But you’re still enjoying it?

CL: Yes very much. I actually like rallying better than circuit racing to be honest. Circuit racing is a bit too precise, in rallying you have a bit more room to throw the car around a bit.

A week later I caught up with the pair again, this time learn so it’s ok. We had a couple of experiences next in Ypres, where Lime learned that not all rallies are to the road, but no real damage so we managed to finalike and that ‘Ypres’ is something else than, with all ish the event and learn a lot. due respect, the Vechtdalrally.

Learning then is the name of the game for Lim and MW: It has been quite difficult here. The stages are a Wijdaeghe. It will take Lim some time to adjust from lot slippier than we anticipated. There is a lot of dust circuit racing to rallying, just ask Kimi Raikonen and and mud on the stages. We slid of into a field once, but Robert Kubica how difficult that can be. But he does it wasn’t too serious, all part of the learning process! seem to have found a proper team bond with co-driver CL: In a big rally like this, I have really learned the Wijdaeghe and although they weren’t looking for pure importance of pace notes. There are a lot more com- speed just yet, in his very first rally he was already setbinations of corners here. They follow each other really ting stage times very close to the much more experiquick, so if you don’t have the pace notes, there is no enced Timo van der Marel (who’s no scrub himself) on chance to be fast. On the other hand, with so many the second loop of stages. If given enough time, the combination corners the pace notes also come really experience will come and with two guys with both feet quick, so it is difficult to process all that information. firmly on the ground, the future looks bright for the new But we don’t look at the result, we are only here to Rally(ist) stars.

Kenotek Ypres Rally Based in: Ypres Number of stages: Longest stage: Shortest stage: Total stage distance:

6-8/05/2016 Surface: Asphalt 17 Hollebeke, 23.23 km Mesen, 7.48 km 250 km

Kenotek Ypres Rally / Review

freddy’s playground The Ypres Rally has always been one of Europe’s foremost non-WRC events. Many great drivers have been lured by the uber-quick asphalt roads, but none have been as successful there as Freddy Loix. His dominance started in the mid-nineties before WRC obligations prevented his ability to enter the event.

Since 2008 though, Freddy has been back and on only Kris Meeke and Juho Häninen have been able to snag a win from the Belgian since.

Would this year be any different?

Words: Steven van Veenendaal

41/70

Images: Steven van Veenendaal

Kenotek Ypres Rally / Review 42/70

The Big Launch Perhaps the biggest story of the event came from outside of competition. Hyundai used the event to launch their R5 challenger. The car is based on the i20 just like its big WRC brother and looks quite similar apart from the rear wing.

Main development driver Kevin Abbring was given the honour to showcase the car to the fans. Currently the car is not yet homologated meaning he would run outside of competition as the ‘VIP-car’, giving Abbring the chance to drive just a little more spectator-friendly and fling the car around the corners. “We are quite happy with the car already” says Abbring. “In just under half a year we were able to build a car with a very dedicated team and the feeling is already very good. We will not be sharing any times, but we hope to have a good idea of the performance at the end of the rally.” Despite multiple attempts, with different sources, from our side, times indeed were not shared, although Abbring’s father did admit grinningly that “They aren’t unhappy...”

Apart from the testing oppor-

tunity, the Ypres launch was of course about showing the car to the public for the first time and gain as much attention as possible. With the spectacular Abbring behind the wheel, they sure succeeded in that mission. With strong rumours already surrounding the Dutch van den Heuvel motorsport team to be interested in running the car. More are sure to follow after the car’s official homologation later this summer.

No-show There was also some disappointing news for the fans though as one of the big favourites, Ott Tanak had to withdraw from the event because the desired car wasn’t available for the event. It would give Tanak additional time to prepare for Rally Poland though, and as you can read elsewhere, that didn’t hurt him…

Tanak out meant one less worry for Loix, but he would still have his hands full in dealing with the likes of Bryan Bouffier, Stephane Lefebvre, Alexey Lukyanuk and plenty of local drivers eager to push Freddy off of his throne.

All smiles at Hyundai for the launch of their new R5 challenger.

Bouffier blasted into the rally and took the lead on the opening day.

“It’s not hard to go fast. It is hard to stay on the road when you are going fast” - Alexey Lukyanuk.

Lefebvre was dropping autographs and fastest times.

Quote of the day Alexey Lukyanuk dropped the quote of the day by stating “It’s not hard to go fast. It is hard to stay on the road when you are going fast though.”

Given Alexey’s track record everyone was a little worried if he was going to be able to finish the illustriously tricky Ypres Rally, but surely on his debut here, he would back off a little bit. Right? Wrong. He never backed off and looked fast on the first stage, but near the end of it, he came across one of the most characteristic challenges of the rally, ditches. The fast roads through the fields are all lined with nearly invisible ditches. Put a wheel of the asphalt and into the grass and you are only centimetres away from sliding into of them and imminent disaster. It would be Lukyanuk’s fate, resulting in a roll and the end of his rally.

Allez Bryan Bryan Bouffier was on the pace and took an early lead, fending of Loix during the first day. Loix is just seven seconds behind though; not a lot considering he usually takes a bit of time to settle into the

rally. Lefebvre find himself behind the leading duo in the mix with Belgian aces and Dutchman Kobus, all vying for that final podium spot.

Gearbox blues It’s Saturday morning and Bouffier is ready to batlle. His car unfortunately, not so much.

Gearbox issues end his rally.

It’s a big disappointment for the Frenchman who showed such good pace and looked to capitalize on it. It wasn’t to be though, and Freddy Loix was already back in his favourite Ypres spot, the lead.

There was another Frenchy to deal with though as Lefebvre found his groove and was seemingly winning every stage. It forced Loix to make a decision: do I go for victory, or do I ensure second to take the Belgian title? It was a decision he eventually never had to make. More gearbox woes meant that Lefebvre also had to retire from what seemed like a sure storm to victory.

But that’s the story of Ypres.

Many soldiers come to battle and far too many of them fall, except for the king, Fast Freddy, who reigns supreme to rule them all.

Kenotek Ypres Rally Overall final classification 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Loix-Gitsels Princen-Kaspers

Casier-Vyncke Kobus-de Wild

Verschueren-Hostens Tsjoen-Chevaillier Tarabus-Trunkat Tanghe-Cuvelier Demaerschalk-Eelbode Tlustak-Kucera

2016 FIA ERC Drivers’ Standings Skoda Fabia R5 Peugeot 208 T16 Ford Fiesta R5 Skoda Fabia R5 Skoda Fabia R5 Ford Fiesta R5 Skoda Fabia R5 Ford Fiesta R5 Citroen DS3 R5 Skoda Fabia R5

2:22:15.1 +56.8 +1.19.8 +1.27.0 +1.32.3 +2.29.9 +2.49.2 +3.52.0 +5.45.9 +7.46.0

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Kajetan Kajetanowicz Alexey Lukyanuk Ralfs Sirmacis Craig Breen Freddy Loix Ricardo Moura

Jaromir Tarabus

Kris Princen

Lambros Athanassoulas Wojchiech Chuchala

Ford Fiesta R5 Ford Fiesta R5 Skoda Fabia R5 Citroen DS3 R5 Skoda Fabia R5 Ford Fiesta R5 Skoda Fabia R5 Peugeot 208 T16 Skoda Fabia R5 Subaru Impreza STi

92 pts 77 pts 41 pts 38 pts 38 pts 37 pts 33 pts 28 pts 27 pts 26 pts

Scottish Rally British Rally Championship

Words: Steven van Veenendaal; Images: Andy Crayford - Crayfordmedia.com

Round 4

British RC / Scottish Rally

B Dumfries British Rally Championship

After a dominant win in the opening round of the championship, the Mid Wales Stages, Elfyn Evans was out of luck on the following Circuit of Ireland and Pirelli Carlisle Rally. In Scotland he looked to pounce and retake the championship lead. He would have to deal with Fredrik Ahlin and the local boys but it would turn out Elfyn was more than up for the job.

49/70

Evans was in fine form early on and won the first stage to open up a nearly ten second lead. Ahlin admitted he took it a bit too easy on the opening stage and was off the pace.

He found himself down in fourth and knew he would have to fight back to give Evans a run for his money and the championship lead. On stages two and three he refound his pace with two second-fastest times behind the unbeatable Evans. Drama followed on stage four though when a broken propshaft at the start of the stage meant the Swede had no drive and there was nothing left to do but retire from the event and look on as Evans had a field day with the rest of the opposition. Ahlin’s five point championship lead suddenly looked very slim indeed, with 25 points going to the winner of the event.

British RC / Scottish Rally 50/70

Looking forward One man certainly looking forward to the event was David Bogie. The local hero couldn’t wait to get going on the Scottish stages he loves so much “Ae, Castle O’er, Twiglees and such like are such iconic Scottish stages.

They are real driver’s stages, that have a compact, hard surface. It is not a technical rally, the roads just flow really nicely. Mind you, I’ve got a fairly good knowledge of them, so I could be a wee bit biased.” His local knowledge paid off as Bogie moved up to second after Ahlin’s retirement. Bogie then found himself locked in a battle with Tom Cave who was challenging some ten seconds behind. Cave kept the pressure on but couldn’t really close the gap which kept hovering between five and ten seconds. Both knew that any mistake would surely propel their rival past. The fight looked to be going all the way down to the wire until a damaged radiator on the final stage of the rally ended Bogie’s (and the local fans’) hope of landing a podium finish. Tom Cave was delighted to take the second spot though, even more so as he opted to play his joker and thus scored double points.

Putting things in perspective The main fight thus was for second, as there was no stopping Elvyn Evans. The WRC regular was in a class of his own and won seven out of a possible eight stages to build up almost a one minute margin over his nearest rival Cave. “This win is what we wanted as we have had a lot of bad luck on the last few rounds and we wanted to get on back track in Scotland.” The win puts Evans right back in the championship lead with a healthe twenty point lead over the unfortunate Ahlin.

After a day-long fight with David Bogie, Tom Cave eventually second.

Desi Henry was delighted to be on the podium along WRC star Elfyn Evans.

The third and final podium spot went to Desi Henry, who was ecstatic to be there and put things into perspective nicely “It is a privilege to be on the BRC podium. To be standing with Elfyn Evans is quite something – he is a world rally driver, and I am a builder!” A great testament to the heart of the sport, where top level ace and clubman all compete on the same grounds and with the same passion.

Overall final classification 1. Evans – Parry 2. Cave – Morgen 3. Henry – Moynihan 4. Greer – Riddick 5. Moffett – Rowan 6. Anderson – Whittock 7. Edwards – Rogers 8. Preston – Edwards 9. Furuseth – Hjerpe 10. Mellors – Windress

Ford Fiesta R5 Ford Fiesta R5 Skoda Fabia R5 Citroen DS3 R5 Ford Fiesta R5 Ford Fiesta R5 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX Skoda Fabia R5 Renault Twingo R2 Proton Satria S2000

51.02,4 +52,4 +2.14,4 +2.42,6 +2.56,0 +2.58,8 +3.59,8 +6.41,4 +7.08,8 +7.14,5

2016 British Rally Championship Drivers Standings 1. Elfyn Evans 2. Fredrik Ahlin 3. Tom Cave 4. Josh Moffett 5. Jonathan Greer 6. Desi Henry 7. David Bogie 8. Matthew Wilson 9. Jamie Anderson 10. Matt Edwards

Ford Fiesta R5 Ford Fiesta R5 Ford Fiesta R5 Ford Fiesta R5 Citroen DS3 R5 Skoda Fabia R5 Skoda Fabia R5

Ford Fiesta R5 Ford Fiesta R5 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX

85 pts 65 pts 56 pts 36 pts 31 pts 19 pts 18 pt 15 pts 13 pts 8 pts

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B Builth Wells British Rally Championship

For the first time since the mideighties a mixed event is part of the British Rally Championship again. The Nicky Grist Stages rally features an opening with gravel stages in mid Wales while on the second day competitors will face the tricky tarmac rounds on the Epynt military grounds. The opening day’s boasts some classic stages like Halfway, on many occasions part of the WRC Wales Rally GB. Make no mistake though; the tarmac stages on Epynt can be equally daunting. These roads

are fast and flowing, over crests and jumps, but put a foot wrong here and you’ll find yourself halfway a the grass, a recipe for disaster.

Four rounds into the championship Elfyn Evans holds firm lead ahead of Fredrik Ahlin second. Both have been winners this year, but both have also had their fair share of misfortune, resulting in finishes down the leaderboard, or even retirement. So far Evans leads with 85 points, over Ahlin’s 65 and Tom Cave in third with 56 points.

British RC / Nicky Grist Stages 54/70

Similarities With stages similar to the Wales Rally GB, it seemed the weather didn’t want to spoil the party and also turned very ‘Rally GBesque’. In doing so, one could say it did spoil the party because as we all know, true Rally GB conditions are usually associated with rain, lots of it. As the rain came pouring down for much of the day, the roads became even more treacherous, increasing the challenge for the drivers. First to suffer was Fredrik Ahlin. The Swede was eager to make up for his disappointing outing at the Scottish Rally a few weeks earlier, but would fare even worse in Wales. On just the second stage of the rally he slid off the road and into a ditch. He couldn’t back onto the road and his rally would end right there and then. It would be third retirement of his season and cast some worrying clouds over his championship ambitions.

Cave up front If you think Ahlin’s retirement would grant Evans a free ride to victory you’d be wrong though.

It was Tom Cave who would set the early pace and take a surprise lead. Evans suffered a spin on the opening stage and was down in fourth. From that point

on though, Evans set out to restore order. He inched closer on stage two before taking a massive chunk of time out of all his rivals on stage three. It would give him the lead which he wasn’t going to squander anymore.

Improvement It would turn out to be a bit of a Welsh party with local boys taking the top two steps of the podium.

Tom Cave couldn’t quite match Evans’ pace during the rest of the event but did show himself a quick student. Throughout the season he has clearly increased his pace and at the Nicky Grist Stages rally he was really no match for anyone other than Evans. Not only did it help him to second overall, it would also that, this being his third podium finish of the season, he would leapfrog Ahlin for second in the championship. In third came home the likeable Irishman, Desi Henry. It would be his second consecutive third place, matching his performance from the Scottish Rally a few weeks earlier. As a matter of fact, we would see a copy of the entire podium! That’s all likely to change as the season heads into the final two rounds, when the illustrious tarmac events Ulster and Man complete the season.

Tom Cave is improving his pace on every round.

Overall final classification 1. Evans – Parry 2. Cave – Morgen 3. Henry – Moynihan 4. Bogie – O’Reilly 5. Moffett – Rowan 6. Greer – Riddick 7. Yates – Woodburn 8. Anderson – Whittock 9. Mellors – Windress 10. Preston – Morton

Ford Fiesta R5 Ford Fiesta R5 Skoda Fabia R5 Skoda Fabia R5 Ford Fiesta R5 Citroen DS3 R5 Ford Fiesta R5 Ford Fiesta R5 Proton Satria S2000 Skoda Fabia R5

1.18.48,4 +1.11,4 +2.01,8 +2.48,5 +3.05,9 +3.08,0 +3.30,0 +5.38,2 +5.48,7 +5.58,7

2016 British Rally Championship Drivers Standings 1. Elfyn Evans 2. Tom Cave 3. Fredrik Ahlin 4. Josh Moffett 5. Jonathan Greer 6. Desi Henry 7. David Bogie 8. Jamie Anderson 9. Matthew Wilson 10. Rhys Yates

Another fine performance for Henry with third. The tarmac specialist is gearing up nicely for the two final rounds of the championship in Ulster and Man.

Ford Fiesta R5 Ford Fiesta R5 Ford Fiesta R5 Ford Fiesta R5 Citroen DS3 R5 Skoda Fabia R5 Skoda Fabia R5

Ford Fiesta R5 Ford Fiesta R5 Ford Fiesta R5

110 pts 71 pts 65 pts 42 pts 36 pts 29 pts 26 pt 16 pts 15 pts 13 pts

B

the road to china pt. V - Finale

The Road to China / Welcom to ChinaW

welcome to china Words: Harry van Veenendaal

57/70

Images: Harry van Veenendaal

In this new episode of the Road to China we talk to Sven Smeets. In 1999 he was co-driver to Freddy Loix during their participation of the 555 Rally China. Nowadays he is team coordinator at Volkswagen but in this interview we look back at their experiences during the first WRC event in China, back in 1999.

ReM: What was it like in China 1999?

Smeets: Well, It wasn’t easy; we did not have any decent maps. OK we did get some maps from the organizers. They were army maps, but if the army would have gone to war with them… So no it wasn’t simple. Also getting food was complicated. We must have been there about two weeks, but there were no restaurants. We were in a kind of convention centre. There they had a canteen that served as restaurant and even there no one spoke any English. So the whole time I only ate rice! Yes that was it, you just couldn’t order. I tried to go to the kitchen and just indicated: this and that, but it did not work. I know some drivers went to Beijing to go to McDonalds or the Hardrock Café just to find some western food. There was one Brazilian restaurant but that was always packed to the brim. So without a reservation you simply couldn’t get in.

I don’t know what it will be like this year.

There are many more roads, so I think that most people will now know about cars.

But I suspect, that in 1999 on most places we passed, people hadn’t seen cars before. They did everything on foot, or with donkeys and there was a policeman

every ten fifteen meters, just because the people were curious but they didn’t know what a rally was. We had to cross a kind of mountain ridge to go from the servicepark to the start of the first stage. Including recce and all we crossed that road some 30 times and on the other side of the mountains there were no cars. I’ve never seen another car than ours.

ReM: But that’s only 17 years ago?

Smeets:True, but there were no tarmac roads then; everything was still gravel, so in 17 years a lot will have changed. We’re roughly in the same area. But people tell me you can hardly recognize anything anymore. I heard we will only be using the main roads; so there are only few places where you can access the stages, as we are already using the main roads. Start and finish will be on these roads and perhaps there are one or two roads crossing this road and these will then be the only access points. This might be difficult for spectators. Looking at the images they showed us it’s a bit similar to Spain, good tarmac roads but then faster. It looks like we are going to use a circuit set up.

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ReM: But let’s go back to 1999, how did you cope with the typical problems?

Smeets: Well that is why we went there some days earlier to outline our recce route with the available roadbooks and maps. And there were not many different stages; I think we covered most stages three times. So in two days of recce we covered the entire route, including finding our way to the stages, that sometimes wasn’t easy. The organization produced a kind of recce roadbook indicating roughly the direction from the finish of a stage back to the start. You would never have been able to find that yourself. So they were trying to be helpful. But communication was still difficult.

I don’t remember exactly but there was someone close to the teams who spoke English and someone in race control as well. The rest just spoke Chinese. But all the teams had interpreters and only few people drove themselves. They used local drivers to drive them around. But we just drove around there without doing a driving test. Now that is obligatory but they are trying to organize something so that bringing a certified translation of your driver’s license will be enough.

ReM: Does preparation for such a rally differ very much from other events?

Smeets: Actually there wasn’t some much difference compared to preparation for any other overseas rally.

The containers came to Beijing we unpacked everything. Including the real service vans we then still used.

But like I said we all came a bit early just to look what the rally was like.

ReM: Will you be doing that before China this year to?

Smeets: Well we’re going there now and we’ll be looking at the stages and all other things and if everything is OK, we will not be going there until the rally.

ReM: So everything is just a step like in any overseas rally?

Smeets: Yes and on top of that it was already so that en route from Argentina to Australia the containers first went to Malaysia and then down south. Now they have to be a little higher but it’s not that far away. So instead of being in a depot for six weeks they now have Rally China in between. That means we have eight containers that at the beginning of the year depart for Mexico, then to Argentina. Normally the next stop would be Australia but now it will first go to China. The problem is, that this is a tarmac rally, and spare parts in the containers are for gravel, the recce cars too have gravel specs so we now additionally send a small and a large container from our home base directly to China with all special tarmac parts we need.

ReM: But now let’s talk about your rally in 1999 Smeets: Well we didn’t start so bad, but then, I think it was in the second boucle of three stages we went off the road. We did mot have Rally 2 in those years.

So that was it then. The organizers reached us quite quickly and Freddy went with them, but I, had to stay with the car for some seven or eight hours. Because you never leave a rallycar alone, it costs a lot of money and lots of people here never saw a rallycar before, so

as a souvenir they could take parts with them or make photo’s from things you don’t want hem to take photo’s of so that is why I stayed with the car.

ReM: Did you make many lifelong Chinese friendships?

Smeets: No there was just one other man there, a Chinese policeman who absolutely did not speak any words of English. There was a light drizzle all the time.

So he lit a fire and made me some tea or something but that was it. Then Paul Fraikin, a Belgian journalist who at the time made a rally programme called Champion on RTBF (the national Belgian broadcaster) found me.

Freddy had left but found him and together with some mechanics he came to fetch me. They had some problems finding me because the car had fallen quite deeply and then getting the car out was another story, so it took the better part of the day and we didn’t arrive in the hotel until midnight and then a day later you go home.

It’s not like today that you have to stay till Sunday, so we packed our suitcases and went home. While we were busy packing the engine mechanic told us about the first rally of the Mitsubishi WRC, so the second generation. That was in New Zealand. They had a small stage on Thursday evening. On the short route from stage one to stage two, which was the same stage, both drivers stopped their engines and they never started again and then it was over. For that you had gone all the way to New Zealand! But that will not be happening in China 2016.

In part one of this interview that was published in Rally-eMag volume 37, you have seen Smeets’s ideas on Rally 2. This interview on Rally China tells us quite a few more things can change in 17 years. The interview concludes our ‘Road to China’ series. We hope you got an idea of what it was like in 1999. In our following issue we will try to provide you with all information of the 2016 event. Of course we will afterwards get you extensive coverage of our own thoughts on China 2016 after we’ve been there!

Vechtdalrally Dutch Rally Championship

Words: Steven van Veenendaal; Images: Steven van Veenendaal

Round 3

Dutch RC / Vechtdalrally

D Hardenberg Dutch Rally Championship

With most of Holland’s top drivers opting to enter only selected rounds of the 2016 Dutch Rally Championship, Jasper van den Heuvel is the clear favourite for the titel.

The talented Mitsubishi driver is dominating the season so far, and it seemd unlikely he would face any real trouble in continuing his winning ways at the Vechtdalrally, but as he himself said “It always looks easier than it really is, especially with these incredibly changeable weather conditions.”

looked as though they could release heavy rain any minute. That same rain in the weeks prior to the event had forced the organizers to remove most of the gravel from the event. Just like the Vechtdalrally a couple of weeks earlier, the roads were in such bad condition that a fleet of rally cars would likely destroy them or at the very least make them unsafe to drive for the enthusiastic backmarkers.

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In the afternoon those dark clouds would roll over the stages with heavy rain falling from Changeable it was. The opening stages were them. It would make the asphalt roads very held in nice sunny weather but the dark clouds slippery and caught most of the front-runners in the near distance, loomed ominously and off guard as they set out on slick tyres.

Dutch RC / Vechtdalrally

long before the rain comes down. Most of the top drivers are on slick tyres, making it more of a battle for survival than for precious seconds. Matthias Boon shows his skills in navigating his car through the difficult conditions.

He sets a time of twelve seconds faster than van Ballegooijen and deals a heavy blow in the fight for second. “van Ballegooijen went straight in one corner, a mistake is quickly in these conditions” said Boon, before adding “In these condtions you have to drive on eggshells and we seem to have so pretty well.” Obviously, van Ballegooijen wasn’t as happy “We gambled and we lost. We took the hard compound tyres but the stages were very Van den Heuvel takes the lead On the first stage of the rally Jasper van den Heuvel leaves no doubt about wet. It cost us around 30-40 seconds. his intentions. He sets the fastest and starts building on a lead. Behind him Boon, van Ballegooijen and Madsen are locked in battle for second, al- Final showdown though Madsen starts to lose ground on the loose section. It is also here Although Madsen can’t match the pace of the front-runners on the long that van Ballegooijen opens up a slender lead over Boon, although the two straights and loose sections, he proves his old Peugeot is still a very capable car on the industrial grounds where he becomes the only one to snag aren’t separated by more than a few seconds. a stage win away from van den Heuvel. On those industrial stage van Ballegooijens also mounts his final challenge to reclaim second from Boon, When the rain begins to fall The second loop of stages begins in dry conditions but it doesn’t take very but comes up short and has to settle for third.

Mitsu bonanza With only one, older model, Subaru WRC at the start it was clear from the off that the winner would come from the fleet of Mitsubishi Lancer Evo’s.

Danish driver Brian Madsen was one of the outsiders but his Peugeot 306 Maxi was at a clear disadvantage on the long straight sections of the rally.

We would probable have to look at the trio of van den Heuvel, Boon and van Ballegooijen in the Mitsubishi’s for the winner.

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van Ballegooijen loses too much time in the rain and has to settle for third.

Belgian Matthias Boon made the trip to the north and was rewarded with second.

Overall final classification 1. vd Heuvel-Bakker Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X 2. Boon-Thierie Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X 3. v Ballegooijen-Findhammer Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X 4. Andersen-Louring Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X 5. Madsen-Posorski Peugeot 306 Maxi 6. Brouwer-Kroeze Audi Coupe S2 7. Leemans- v Overdijk Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI 8. vd Marel-vd Marel Opel Adam Slam R2 9. de Vries-Vink BMW M3 10. Lim-Wijdaeghe Opel Adam Slam R2

47.31.7 +37,5 +59,1 +1.08,1 +1.22,3 +2.11,7 +2.19,2 +2.39,0 +3.10,5 +4.17,6

2016 Dutch Rally Championship Drivers Standings 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Jasper van den Heuvel Antoine van Ballegooijen Timo van der Marel Gerben Brouwer Bernhard ten Brinke Dennis Kuipers

Martin van Iersel

Roel van der Zanden

Piet van Hoof Edwin Wolves

70 48,75 41 35,5 30 27,75 23,5 22,25 21,25 18

D

Rally-eMag / Erik’s Epic Encounters

Erik’s epic encounters When travelling the world to snap the WRC, our photographer Erik van ‘t Land comes across many interesting scenes, sometimes concerning rallying, and sometimes just the finer things in life. Here are his finds from Sardinia and Poland.

Someone knows how to BBQ Rallying can make you dusty...

Sigh... Men... Never want to wear protection.. ... no surprise, it was hot!

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Santa came early this year...

Get down! We’ve got dust incoming!

Italy’s favourite past time, rolling a rally car down a hill

Anything to get into WRC mode, backs will be shaved.

It’s gonna take more than a broken leg to stop the Polish fans from attending the WRC!

The kindest official in the world!

Even the Polish dogs love rallying!

Winners camouflage

See you next time...

see you next time...