The seventh stage of the World Rally Championship — Rally of Poland — has become a unique way to inflame the stunning and exciting race, which ended with a completely predictable and boring result. Sebastien Ogier won the fifth victory of the season, but will be remembered for the Polish Rally is not the...
The leaders of the rally the Frenchman has left on the start special stage — the first passage viewers dopa Mikołajki Arena. Dopom later it shifted from the first position, but not for long — the seventh SU Seb again led the race and did not allow anyone to interfere in their quest for another victory.
His fifth victory he won a crushing score — 18 special stages held pilot Volkswagen Motorsport won eight, two showed the second and two — the third time. In general, during the race he has never finished outside the top six.
An advantage of the factory team and Volkswagen confirmed second place Andreas Mikkelsen. The Norwegian had a strange race — he won two special stages, a dozen times finished in the top three, led the race after the second SU, then fell back after the third special stage in second place and stayed there until the finish.
All the time he was in the vicinity of Sebastien Ogier, just at a distance of attack — during the first two days of the rally the gap between Norwegian and French varied from seconds with little to ten. But at the crucial moment, Andreas, they say, was blown away — two special stages on Sunday the gap was doubled (from 5.6 to 11.9 seconds), and winning the Power Stage went to all the same Ogier.
The race was a real discovery Ott Tyanak. The fact that the Estonian pilot of M-Sport is fast — not news. But the fact that the native of the island of Saaremaa can go incredibly fast and at the same time to avoid any incidents — to this we are not used to.
Six wins on the special stages, the lead in the race for the first half of the day, the final and the third place in the race, and on the Power Stage — Tyanak undoubtedly can record the Polish rally itself into an asset. And who knows what would have ended the race if Estonians did not stay loose on the first day of the rally.
It is worth noting the fact that Ott was able to get too nervous and make mistakes of Jari-Matti Latvala — the Finn and the Estonian duel waged throughout the second day of the rally, ending it with polutorasekundnym advantage pilot M-Sport. On Sunday, Volkswagen Motorsport driver ran into a decisive attack on the Power Stage but Jari car left the road and crashed into a tree.
Finn got to finish the special stage, and then was forced to carry out operative repair in the field. He was able to get to the service and finished the race in fourth place, but was sorokasekundnuyu penalization and fell back to fifth place.
The fourth eventually became Hayden Peddon! Many considered the second place, won by New Zealander in the previous stage in Italy, accident. However, the pilot of the second team of Hyundai, it seems, is not going to put up with this interpretation of their speeches — he had another brilliant race, once again eclipsing his comrades-in-arms from the Korean manufacturer's factory team.
This time Peddon not shine some real quick seconds on special stages — he twice showed the second time or more in the top 3 never lit up — but he proved to be extremely stable! Only two of the eighteen special stages Hayden finished outside the top ten. Decent speed without any problems, failures and mistakes — that's the key to his success.
Leader Hyundai Motorsport factory team Thierry Neuville finished the Rally of Poland on the sixth position. Once again he lost the third driver Hayden Peddon Korean team — this time almost half a minute! Worse, the Belgian was completely invisible — he never finished on the special stages and above fourth place in the race was not raised above the sixth position. And he remembered only that managed to roll over on the penultimate special stage.
But his teammate Dani Sordo had a Polish stage of the World Rally Championship is even worse. Hispanic Shows the seventh and worse, spent the entire race in the fight for the last position in the top 10, and it is there and finished the Rally of Poland. It is worth noting that neither Neville nor Sordo during the race did not complain of any problems. They just «do not ehalos» that looks rather strange compared to the performance of the same Peddon...
But the most serious failure was expecting the riders to finish the factory team Citroen Racing. Kris Meeke started the race «for the dead», having made a «roof» in a few turns another shakedown. But it was the Irishman was the best of the two pilots of «double chevron» at the finish of the rally — he finished seventh, ninth position against his team-mate Mads Ostberg.
Both drivers did not win a single victory in the special stages, both spent the whole race on the border to enter the top 10, and thus both drove the rally without any particular problems. Riddle is so slow pace has resolved at the end of the race, when the head of Citroen Racing Yves Mutton admitted the mistake of the team that... refused to conduct pre-launch tests! Inexcusable negligence on the part of the factory team.
In the home eighth position for himself Rally Poland's Robert Kubica finished — the only «private owner» in the top 10. And this result was mainly for the local fans — the rest was merely an application.
Polish stage of the World Rally Championship this year was a vivid and memorable event. High speeds, many jumps, the crowd of fans — previously characterized the Rally Finland. Now there is one more race with the same crazy character. Albeit with a boring result.
