KJD Mk1

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Sordo sets sights on Hirvonen



Dani Sordo is determined to make up for last year's poor performance when he returns to the Rally Sardinia this weekend - and the Citroen number two believes he can now fight to give his team a one-two in the World Rally Championship at the end of the year.
His team-mate Sebastien Loeb's five wins out of five rallies at the start of this season have already given him a 20-point lead over Ford's title contender Mikko Hirvonen. And with the Finn retiring in Argentina last month, Sordo was able to move into second in the championship, one point ahead of Hirvonen, thanks to his third podium finish of the season.
Last year Sordo ran second to Loeb early on in Sardinia, but did not cope well with the dusty roads of legs two and three, tumbling to fifth place. He wants to demonstrate how much he has improved this weekend.
"I see this round as a big test following my fifth place on last year's event," Sordo said. "That wasn't such a great result for me."
The Spaniard believes he has become a much better driver over the past season, and with Loeb already well on course for another title, Sordo hopes Hirvonen's battle will be to fend him off for second place rather than trying to catch the Frenchman.
"This season is a bit special because I sense I am making progress on all the different types of surface we encounter in the championship," said Sordo.
"If I can keep that up in Sardinia, I think I will be able to take the fight to Mikko.
"Being second in the championship hasn't changed my approach in any way, but it's true that I would like to hold on to second place."

KJD Mk1

iTrader: (3)

Loeb fastest at Sardinia Shakedown

Defending World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb was the fastest driver at this morning’s pre-event Shakedown test for Rally d’Italia - Sardegna, but expects to be slower than his rivals on Friday.
Today’s four-hour test took place on a 3.75km gravel road in Monte Pinu, 10km from the Service Park in Olbia. Weather conditions were dry throughout with clear skies and a temperature of 31°C.
Loeb, who has won the Sardinian event three times, made three passes through the stage in his Citroen Total team C4 WRC, recording his best time of 3min 15.0sec on his final attempt.
“It was okay but not so representative of the rally,” Loeb told wrc.com. “There were a lot of uphill hairpins, so it was a bit different to the actual stages. I just tried to see if everything was going well on the car and if the set-up looked okay. It was alright, so I had no problems.”
But while everything was in order at Shakedown, Loeb warned that the combination of bone dry stages and his start position of first on the road could seriously limit his speed on Friday.
Loeb said: “The stages were very slippery on the recce. It was very dry and I think it will be dry all weekend, so that’s going to makes road cleaning very important. You could see the difference in the times today - I was 15 seconds faster on my third pass compared to my first. That shows how much you have to clean the roads. I think that might be the key to this rally.”
Loeb said he expected to lose time to his rivals on the opening day, but wasn’t sure whether tactics would come into play before Saturday. “It depends, because it’s possible I’ll lose nearly one minute on Friday,” he explained. “And if I was leading by that amount after the first day I’d find it very hard to give it up.”
Stobart VK M-Sport Ford driver Henning Solberg set the second fastest time, while his brother Petter was third in his Citroen.
BP Ford Abu Dhabi Team drivers Mikko Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala set exactly the same best time - which was the fifth quickest of the session. Hirvonen returned to his hotel after his second pass because he was feeling unwell.
The opening stage of the rally gets underway on Friday morning from 0932hrs.
Here are today’s leading WRC shakedown times:
1. LOEB. Citroen C4 WRC. 3:15.0
2. H. SOLBERG. Ford Focus RS WRC 08. 3:16.1
3. P. SOLBERG. Citroen Xsara WRC. 3:18.2
4. SORDO. Citroen C4 WRC. 3:18.9
=5. HIRVONEN. Ford Focus RS WRC 08. 3:19.4
=5. LATVALA. Ford Focus RS WRC 08. 3:19.4
7. WILSON. Ford Focus RS WRC 08. 3:20.5
8. ÖSTBERG. Subaru Impreza WRC. 3:22.4
9. AL QASSIMI. Ford Focus RS WRC. 3:23.5
10. OGIER. Citroen C4 WRC. 3:24.0
11. VILLAGRA. Ford Focus RS WRC 08. 3:25.2
12. RAUTENBACH. Citroen C4 WRC. 3:25.4
13. NOVIKOV. Citroen C4 WRC. 3:25.6

DYL 4N

Here are today’s leading WRC shakedown times:
1. LOEB. Citroen C4 WRC. 3:15.0
2. H. SOLBERG. Ford Focus RS WRC 08. 3:16.1
3. P. SOLBERG. Citroen Xsara WRC. 3:18.2
4. SORDO. Citroen C4 WRC. 3:18.9
=5. HIRVONEN. Ford Focus RS WRC 08. 3:19.4
=5. LATVALA. Ford Focus RS WRC 08. 3:19.4
7. WILSON. Ford Focus RS WRC 08. 3:20.5
8. ÖSTBERG. Subaru Impreza WRC. 3:22.4
9. AL QASSIMI. Ford Focus RS WRC. 3:23.5
10. OGIER. Citroen C4 WRC. 3:24.0
11. VILLAGRA. Ford Focus RS WRC 08. 3:25.2
12. RAUTENBACH. Citroen C4 WRC. 3:25.4
13. NOVIKOV. Citroen C4 WRC. 3:25.6


Come on Petter.

Rally fan 555

iTrader: (7)

Hooray to that - can't get used to him in Citgroan though !!!! lets hope his impreza days are'nt over !!!!!!!!!!!!

KJD Mk1

iTrader: (3)

Latvala takes early Sardinia lead

Friday, May 22nd 2009,

Jari-Matti Latvala has taken an early lead in the Rally Sardinia, benefiting from his road position to pull out a 14.6-second advantage over Sebastien Loeb through the first three stages.
Latvala's incident-packed start to 2009 has left him only seventh in the championship at present - and therefore seventh onto the dusty stages this morning.
The cleaner surface helped him to take two stage victories and head the field, despite a few issues with his Ford.
"I'm not so happy at the moment," Latvala admitted after SS2. "I have a problem with the braking where it feels like the engine wants to stall, and it's affecting my driving quite a lot."
Ford held a one-two for the first two stages with Latvala and team-mate Mikko Hirvonen, the latter lacking confidence on the slippery roads, but Loeb put his Citroen between them with a good time on SS3.
"It's very slippery and being first on the road is very difficult, but that's how it is," said the championship leader.
Petter Solberg holds fourth in his Citroen Xsara, despite huge frustration on the first stage when his engine began to overheat and went into a conservative setting while matching the works Fords' pace.
"It's terrible - bloody hell, we would have won the stage easily," he raged at the end of SS1.
Petter Solberg holds fourth in his Citroen Xsara, despite huge frustration on the first stage when his engine began to overheat and went into a conservative setting while matching the works Fords' pace.
"It's terrible - bloody hell, we would have won the stage easily," he raged at the end of SS1.
Citroen number two Dani Sordo is already a minute behind the leaders. He picked up a penalty for being late into the first stage - insisting this was due to a turbo problem rather than, as Hirvonen suspected, early tactics - and then lost more time when he hit a large rock and damaged a damper on SS3. He currently holds ninth place.
Fifth place is being disputed by Citroen Junior duo Sebastien Ogier and Evgeny Novikov, who both made very strong starts to the event. Ogier took the place from his team-mate with a rapid time on SS3, while Adapta Subaru's Mads Ostberg is closing on both of them, despite being uneasy about the car's handling.
Stobart Ford's Henning Solberg fell from an initial fifth place to eighth as others got into their stride, the Norwegian admitting that it was taking him a while to settle into the rally and his set-up. His team-mate Matthew Wilson is nearly two minutes adrift of the leaders after hydraulic problems this morning.
Leading positions after SS3:
Pos Driver Car Time 1. Jari-Matti Latvala Ford 42m40.2s 2. Sebastien Loeb Citroen + 14.6s 3. Mikko Hirvonen Ford + 18.3s 4. Petter Solberg Citroen + 21.2s 5. Sebastien Ogier Citroen + 26.2s 6. Evgeny Novikov Citroen + 32.0s 7. Mads Ostberg Subaru + 33.1s 8. Henning Solberg Ford + 38.0s 9. Dani Sordo Citroen +1m02.4s10. Khalid Al Qassimi Ford +1m24.8s

KJD Mk1

iTrader: (3)

Latvala handed big lead by tactics



Jari-Matti Latvala will lead the Rally Sardinia by nearly 40 seconds going into day two after his closest pursuers decided to slow down for tactical reasons on today's final stage.
With the dusty roads proving a major headache for the drivers running first on the road, Latvala was able to benefit from his seventh place in the starting order to open up a 17.2s lead through the first five stages of the event.
But in SS6, both Sebastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen backed off to try and ensure the best possible road position for Saturday's stages, whereas Latvala decided to stay at full pace and stretched his advantage to 39.8s over his Ford team-mate Hirvonen and 42.8s over Citroen driver Loeb.
Despite his big lead, Latvala was concerned that his flat-out tactic might not pay off tomorrow.
"It is a little bit of a bad move actually," he said. "But if you want to win you have to be able to drive first on the road, so we will see. It's not an easy situation. Tomorrow will be a very hard day for me. It hasn't been cleaning as much today as we expected. I'll try to keep a clear head and stay cool."
Hirvonen was frustrated to find himself ahead of Loeb in second place, having been caught out by how much his rival - who preferred not to comment on his tactics - had slowed.
"I f****d it up," said Hirvonen. "This is completely a mistake. You can't do it much more wrong than I did just now. This is really, really bad. I didn't slow down enough. I didn't believe that Loeb would slow down so much. Completely my mistake."
The tactical driving ahead has allowed Petter Solberg to close right in on Hirvonen and Loeb, the former champion ending the day just 7s from second place in his outdated Citroen Xsara - and with a slightly better leg two road position than those ahead.
Despite spinning on both runs through Crastazza, Citroen Junior's Russian teenager Evgeny Novikov ended the day in a superb fifth place. The team would have had two cars in the top six had Sebastien Ogier not stopped on SS5 with a broken damper.
Henning Solberg has moved up to sixth for Stobart Ford, narrowly ahead of Adapta Subaru's Mads Ostberg, with Dani Sordo back in eighth in the second works Citroen having been given his second time penalty of the day for leaving service late following suspension repairs.
Leading positions after day one:
Pos Driver Car Time 1. Jari-Matti Latvala Ford 1h24m14.5s 2. Mikko Hirvonen Ford + 39.8s 3. Sebastien Loeb Citroen + 42.8s 4. Petter Solberg Citroen + 46.4s 5. Evgeny Novikov Citroen + 1m04.7s 6. Henning Solberg Ford + 1m08.2s 7. Mads Ostberg Subaru + 1m16.6s 8. Dani Sordo Citroen + 1m37.3s 9. Matthew Wilson Ford + 2m33.8s10. Khalid Al Qassimi Ford + 2m59.9s

KJD Mk1

iTrader: (3)

Latvala hangs on as Hirvonen closes


Jari-Matti Latvala's lead is down to nine seconds going into the final day of the Rally Sardinia Italia, as his Ford team-mate Mikko Hirvonen continued to close in.
Although Latvala had managed to keep his pursuers at bay while running first on the road this morning, Hirvonen made greater inroads into his team-mate's lead during this afternoon's loop.
The battle for victory now looks like an all-Ford affair though, with Sebastien Loeb having lost over a minute when he had to stop and change a punctured tyre on SS11.
Latvala said he was very pleased with his performance so far, but acknowledged that Hirvonen would have the edge on Sunday as he would enjoy more favourable road conditions running in second place.
"It's been a really good day," he said. "We had a really tough battle on stage 11 and I made a little mistake there and spun on a junction. But that's really the only mistake I've made today.
"It won't be so easy [tomorrow]. In first position, I've been losing a little bit too much time today. I was losing time on this last stage, my tyres started to be a little bit too finished."
Hirvonen did not think running second would make too much difference tomorrow, and said he was looking forward to the battle with his team-mate.
"Okay, the starting position is not so great, but hopefully we can fight," he said.
Although Loeb has already reduced the gap to the leaders from 1m33s to 1m14s, with only five stages tomorrow he expects to have to settle for a podium. He finished the day 1.8s behind third-placed Petter Solbeg.
"Now I'll try to catch Petter for the third place, it's the only thing I can do," said Loeb. "I lost too much. It has been a difficult rally for us since the start. It's not going like we want."
Solberg does not think he has much chance of holding Loeb off in the morning.
"It will be difficult to beat Sebastien, but at least we've had a very good day - that's the main thing," he said.
The battle for the remaining points positions has been turned inside out by a series of dramas this afternoon. Stobart Ford's Henning Solberg was first to hit trouble, breaking his front suspension on SS11. Around the same time, Dani Sordo started losing huge amounts of time as a turbo problem developed on his Citroen C4.
Evgeny Novikov (Citroen Junior) looked set to lose fifth place due to an SS12 spin, only for his sparring partner Mads Ostberg (Adapta Subaru) to stop near the end of the same stage. That meant Novikov completed leg two in a very comfortable top five position, which was good news for Citroen Junior given that his team-mates Conrad Rautenbach and Sebastien Ogier - the latter already running under superally after a Friday error - both halted with suspension damage this afternoon.
All of that has moved Matthew Wilson and Khalid Al Qassimi up to sixth and seventh ahead of the struggling Sordo, with Ostberg and Solberg classified ninth and 10th via superally at present.
Patrik Sandell has extended a 23s lead over Nasser Al-Attiyah in the Production class, which is now a two-way dice as their Friday sparring partner Patrick Flodin has fallen back to fourth behind Armindo Araujo following differential problems this morning.
Early Junior class leader Martin Prokop looked set to overcome the delay caused by an electrical glitch yesterday and storm back into the lead today, only to clip a tree and damage his Citroen on the final stage. That means Michal Kosciuszko stays ahead going into day three, with Alessandro Bettega - who led briefly after Prokop's problems on Friday - out of contention following a trip off the road.
Leading positions after day two:
Pos Driver Car Time 1. Jari-Matti Latvala Ford 2h58m.03.5s 2. Mikko Hirvonen Ford + 9.9s 3. Petter Solberg Citroen + 1m12.6s 4. Sebastien Loeb Citroen + 1m14.8s 5. Evgeny Novikov Citroen + 2m46.0s 6. Matthew Wilson Ford + 5m02.8s 7. Khalid Al Qassimi Ford + 6m57.9s 8. Dani Sordo Citroen + 8m38.8s 9. Mads Ostberg Subaru + 12m29.0s10. Henning Solberg Ford + 12m30.1s

KJD Mk1

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Latvala ends Loeb's winning streak


Jari-Matti Latvala turned his troubled season around and ended Sebastien Loeb's unbeaten run in the 2009 World Rally Championship by winning the Rally Sardinia.
The Finn, who led home team-mate Mikko Hirvonen in a Ford one-two ahead of Loeb, had started his season with a string of mistakes, including a ferocious accident in Portugal that saw his car roll 17 times down the side of a cliff.
Ford kept faith with Latvala despite his lack of points, and he rewarded team boss Malcolm Wilson with a consummate victory in Italy this weekend.
"It is a big relief," said Latvala. "It was a great thing that I was able to win this rally, it really means a lot to me. It's been unbelievable, but I have also been a little bit lucky with things being on my side. This has come at a really important point."

With road order expected to be a major factor this weekend, Latvala benefited from his seventh place in the starting list to lead on Friday, while Loeb and Hirvonen both deliberately dropped time at the end of the first leg in a bid to ensure the other had less favourable conditions for Saturday - allowing Latvala to end the day 40s in front.
While Hirvonen closed the gap to 9s during leg two, Loeb's challenge for victory ended when he was delayed by a puncture.
It looked like Hirvonen would easily overcome Latvala before the finish, but suddenly this morning running first on the road became an advantage rather than a disadvantage, as dust hung in the very still air and ruined visibility for those chasing Latvala - which meant the young Finn could pull away again.
Ford then resisted the temptation to apply team orders, allowing Latvala to come home 29.4s clear of Hirvonen.
Loeb recovered to third, beating Petter Solberg on the final loop, but the world champion's position is in some doubt as the FIA is investigating whether seat belt rules were adhered to immediately before he stopped to change his puncture on Saturday. He said that if he kept third he would be relatively satisfied given his tricky weekend.
"It's still third place, so we keep the lead of the championship and we lose only two points - for the moment, it looks like that," said Loeb. "It didn't work this weekend, everything was bad, so third is not so bad."
To add to Citroen's disappointment, Loeb's team-mate Dani Sordo was never a factor, due to turbo problems of varying severity on all three days and a damaging rock impact on Friday.
Solberg did not give up third without a fight, but had to settle for fourth, 14s behind Loeb.
Evgeny Novikov drove conservately today to ensure a breakthrough fifth place - exactly the kind of sensible result the Citroen Junior team had urged its drivers to aim for. His team-mates Sebastien Ogier (who had also been a top six contender at first) and Conrad Rautenbach both had to use superally after damper failures, although Ogier's rally ended with a brush with a barrier on Saturday.
Their incidents were typical of the attrition that decimated the rest of the WRC field. Henning Solberg (Stobart Ford) battled with Novikov and Ogier until leg two, when he first picked up a puncture then later broke his front suspension.
Hydraulic problems on Friday morning left Solberg's team-mate Matthew Wilson trailing the field right from the start, but the dramas ahead helped him recover to sixth.
Adapta Subaru's Mads Ostberg could have done even better than seventh after his best drive of the year so far. He was challenging Novikov for fifth until a steering arm broke at the end of leg two, then held off fellow superally runner Solberg by just 0.6s today. Solberg did all he could to catch the Subaru, winning SS16 outright and ending the final stage with a very battered Ford.
Works Ford driver Khalid Al Qassimi had been set for seventh, potentially a career-best, until power steering problems struck on Saturday. He was then further delayed by a trip off the road and subsequent brake issues today.
A superb three-way Production fight between Patrick Flodin, Patrik Sandell and Nasser Al-Attiyah became a head-to-head between the latter pair when differential problems slowed Flodin on Saturday. Sandell looked like he had the pace to take a third win of the season, but Al-Attiyah mounted a superb charge on the final loop and stole victory by just 1.5s.
Behind them, Pirelli Star Driver Jarkko Nikara - who was not registered for Production points this time - stunned by shrugging off a string of mechanical dramas to close on Sandell and Al-Attiyah, having been an amazing seventh fastest overall on SS13.
Martin Prokop took an outstanding Junior win, battling back from electrical problems and penalties on Friday, and an impact with a tree on Saturday, to beat Michal Kosciuszko to victory. Alessandro Bettega also led for a while until a Saturday crash.
Leading finishers:
Pos Driver Car Time 1. Jari-Matti Latvala Ford 4h00m55.7s 2. Mikko Hirvonen Ford + 29.4s 3. Sebastien Loeb Citroen + 1m43.7s 4. Petter Solberg Citroen + 1m57.6s 5. Evgeny Novikov Citroen + 5m11.8s 6. Matthew Wilson Ford + 7m29.3s 7. Mads Ostberg Subaru + 13m20.6s 8. Henning Solberg Ford + 13m21.2s 9. Conrad Rautenbach Citroen + 19m31.1s10. Nasser Al-Attiyah Subaru + 19m43.7s

KJD Mk1

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Penalty drops Loeb to fourth



Sebastien Loeb has been given a two minute penalty in Sardinia because his co-driver Daniel Elena unfastened his safety belts while their car was still in motion when they stopped to change a punctured tyre on SS11 yesterday.
The world champion falls from third to fourth in the results as a consequence of the punishment.
Although in past cases drivers have been disqualified outright for not having their safety belts fastened, the stewards decided that Elena's infringement was less severe because it had happened as the car was slowing to a halt for the wheel change, rather than while they were driving at a competitive pace.
Loeb's demotion means that Petter Solberg takes his second podium of the season in his self-run Citroen.
With Mikko Hirvonen finishing second behind his Ford team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala, Loeb's lead over the Finn in the championship is now 17 points.