During his 66-year-old this rally history was of a variety of names: Jyväskylän Suurajot in the 50-ies of the last century, the Rally of 1000 Lakes with 60 for 90 years, Neste Oil Rally Finland in a zero, and now — Neste Rally Finland. Not only changed the nature of race and its features — the crazy and unique gravel special stages, high speed and insane jumps. During this phase of the Finnish and like many fans, which — creates a feeling — a year is just getting more out of the year.
In the list of participants of the Rally Finland this year turned out to be as many as two dozen participants in cars category World Rally Car — in addition to the traditional representatives of the factory teams and the «private traders» in the country of Suomi on machines WRC were Khalid Al-Qassimi, Marcos Ligato, Yazeed Al-Rajhi, Alex Tamrazov Abdullah Al-Qassimi, José Alberto Nicholas and Matti Koskelo. However, none of them failed to achieve much success.
Sample 2016 was an amazing race statistics — with the eight winners of the special stages leading from Rally Finland was only two! Or rather three, but the winners and the leaders of the first special stage, Andreas Mikkelsen and Ott Tyanak, which showed the best time to start SU Harju, lasted two of us in the leading position only one extra. Already at the next special stage Kris Meeke won, he became a leader and no one else his first place not given.
The Irishman became only the sixth driver does not come from Scandinavia, won the Finnish stage WRC. Before him, the entire history of the race — neither more nor less than in 1951 — it was done only five: Didier Auriol, Carlos Sainz, Markko Märtin, Sebastien Loeb and Sebastien Ogier. Excellent company, is not it?
But there is a significant difference — in contrast to predecessors Kris Meeke now stands at the «old» Citroen DS3 WRC as part of de jure «private» Team Abu Dhabi World Rally Team. And that's why the second victory in the Irish season — it's great.
In addition to Chris in 2016 with two wins on the rally stages of the World Cup has so far only Sebastien Ogier. All the rest — Jari-Matti Latvala, Hayden Peddon, Thierry Neuville and Andreas Mikkelsen — have won only one race. And these successes by Mika, no one expected.
All in all, it was necessary to change the approach — instead of trying to drive the struggle on each special stage, Chris goes quickly, but with intelligence and care. He won a total of eight special stages of the twenty-four — one third of the total — but it was enough for him to finish the race winner with a margin from the nearest competitor in half a minute.
How did it happen? Why none of the opponents could not get involved in the fight for victory?
Unlike Chris Mika during the race they «have collected» a whole set of troubles, «costing» someone lost time, and someone and did rally as a whole.
Jari-Matti Latvala is already on the fourth special stage hit the rear left wheel of the parapet and at first earned a puncture, which then led to the loss and damage to the tire wheel arches. The result — losing 16 seconds to the leader and lost two positions in the overall standings. In the future Finn played just three positions, but most of it is not enough.
Catastrophically unlucky three-time world champion Sebastien Ogier. Rally Finland in general has continued a series of races, which are marked «curse Ogier.» The Frenchman failed to win for the sixth consecutive stage — And all these races were gravel.
Of the eight stages in this year's Volkswagen Motorsport driver won only two races — on account of the current world champion winning in Monte Carlo and Sweden. That is, Sébastien has won only formally asphalt and snow and ice stages. But the all-clear, he cleaned «leaked» gravel race.
This state of affairs in the season, exceeded its equator, can not but cause concern. Ahead of the participants of the World Rally Championship is almost three-week break, followed by three asphalt rally, Ogier results which have always been the most stable, followed by two clean gravel race, where Frenchman need to finally break to pieces curse and achieve victory. Otherwise, at this rate deal can be reached and to the loss of seemingly assured the fourth title in a row! Although it would be even interesting, is not it?
This time, he at the end of the first day of a mistake in the hairpin turn, fell into a ditch. Spectators at the point the track was not so much for a long time and they pulled Volkswagen Polo R WRC Frenchman. As a result, Sebastien showed last seventy time, lost 16 and a half minutes, the winner of the special stage. The victory could forget...
The failure befell the third driver of the German team of Andreas Mikkelsen. Norwegian flew off the track at the start of the second day and fell back from third to seventh place.
Ott Tyanak again claimed the top places, but first he fell from the second position to the tenth after the departure from the road. Then rose to fifth place, but the wheel broke and fell back to eighth. Finally, flying in the fourth position finally came down on Sunday, crashing into the rock...
As a result, after the winner Mick and Chris finished second Jari-Matti Latvala finished the race another driver Abu Dhabi WRT Craig Breen — Irish ascended to the podium for the first time.
Racers Hyundai Motorsport Thierry Neuville and Hayden Peddon become the fourth and fifth, sixth and seventh Norwegians Mads Ostberg finished and Andreas Mikkelsen, hereinafter — the winner of the standings WRC 2 Esapekka Lappi, replaces Dani Sordo third pilot Hyundai Kevin Abbring and Teemu Suning County.
The next stage of the World Rally Championship will be held from 19 to 21 August in Germany.
Photo: WRC.com
