Neste Oil Rally Finland: Day 1 review

After a fast and pretty destructive Day 1, Finnish star Jari-Matti Latvala holds the overnight lead, 9.1 secs ahead of the flying Petter Solberg. The new edition to the Citroen Total World Rally Team Sebastian Ogier holds third ahead to team-mate Sebastian Loeb and Dani Sordo is fifth.

Local hero (literally, he lives in the rally's home town, Jyvaskyla) Mikko Hirvonen went on a flyer over SS2 and SS3, setting fastest time on both stages, but he rolled out of the rally spectacularly. The accident happened just after a right-hander, which was followed by a jump. Mikko came over the jump and put the back of the car into a ditch, which sent the car into a series of barrel rolls, wrecking the car. Mikko and Jarmo were ok, and Mikko described the crash as the 'biggest of his career'.

"It was the biggest accident, I have never had one like that before. It's so disappointing. We had a heavy landing and the car just shot straight off the road. It landed nicely in the middle of the road, but we went straight off.”

“There was nothing we could do. We had some steering lock on, but you had to have because we are flying sideways, but it pulled the car straight off the road. There was no problem with the car at all, it sometimes goes a bit stiff on the heavy landing, but there was nothing wrong with the car."

Hirvonen's accident came on his favourite part of the rally, a part he describes as being the best in the whole calender.

"Where I went off is the place in the whole world where I like to drive the most," he said. "There were lots of people watching and they said there was nothing different from last year. We then went straight to the bank and rolled, it rolled for a long time - all the way up the hill.”

“I was surprised at the way the car pulled so violently on the landing. We were going at 140km/h or something like that - but the speed wasn't too much. If the speed was too much we would fly to the bank. I knew when it landed that was it, the rally was over. We were both okay, but quite dizzy from the actual roll."

“The dream is over and it’s just disappointing. We definitely had the speed to win the rally. It’s a real shame but it happens. At least we were at a good speed and know we’re heading in the right direction. That’s good.”

However, Hirvonen has been quick to dismiss the crash, saying that hasn't scared him.

“A crash like that is not going to distract me or scare me. It’s done and we’ll go to the next rallies and try to go as fast as we did here. Petter [Solberg] and Jari-Matti [Latvala] are driving really well, really fast so it could have been a great rally. We have the speed now but I cocked it up on this one. There are still some rallies to go and we have to try and do as well as we can on those rallies. We were leading here and I want to get up there as soon as I can. We’ll see about [winning in] Germany but for sure we’ll try.” said the Finn.

Team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala starts Leg 2 first on the road, which will prove a hindrance, if the predicted rain doesn't come: “Running third on the road gave me a bit of an advantage today. Maybe I took it too carefully at times but we’ll try to keep up this pace tomorrow.”

PSWRT driver and team owner Petter Solberg was happy with his performance over the course of the day.

“I’m very happy with the day. Second in the classification and fastest Citroën is actually better than I expected. I didn’t push too much today, it was much more important to stay on the road and not getting any punctures.”

“I did loose some time at the Myhinpaa stage, as I didn’t do that stage last year, and it is a really tricky stage, but that was expected. I know I can be much faster, and will push a lot more on tomorrows stages, not only to keep the others behind, but will chase for Latvala also. I am very comfortable, confident and relaxed,” said the Citroen privateer. “I am not taking any big risks.”

Petter's chef's have rewarded him for his performance over the stages of Day 1. Here's what is on the menu:

Finnish meatballs

Dauphinoise potatoes

garlic and spinache courgettes

pepper sauce

sweetcorn

Desert: Strawberry trifle.

Dani Sordo was keeping up with Solberg and Latvala, but dropped to fifth after Citroen Total WRT drivers Sebastian Loeb and Seb Ogier jumped ahead.

Both Henning Solberg and Khalid Al-Qassimi followed Hirvonen by rolling out of the rally on SS8 and SS6, respectively. Al-Qassimi was in good company, with Jari Ketomaa, Joonas Lindroos, Albert Llovera and Mika Turkki all crashing out on the same stage.

Stobart M-Sport Ford driver Matt Wilson had a relatively trouble-free day, the only complaint was a small handling problem during the day. Another Stobart M-Sport Ford driver, 4-times World Rally Champion Juha Kankkunen, holds seventh, but is being hunted by Kimi Raikkonen, the same Raikkonen who he vowed to beat during the rally.

IRC Series leader Juho Hanninen leads the S-WRC by 41.1 secs to Matti Rantanen with P-G Andersson third, 13 secs behind Rantanen.

The protege of Markko Martin, Ott Tanak, leads the P-WRC with Patrick Flodin over a minute-and-a-half off the pace. Pirelli Star Driver Haydon Paddon sits third. Paddon had the honour of opening the proceedings of the 60^th anniversary of the first running of the Neste Oil Rally Finland (when it was first run, it was known as the 1000 Lakes Rally) on Thursday night.

The highest Irish driver is Craig Breen, who is in 21^st o/a and is the 10^th highest S2000 car. For all other Irish Competitors, see below:

Chris Patterson 2^nd o/a

Michael Orr crashed out

Alan Harryman 79^th o/a

Stephane McAuley 65^th o/a

Killian Duffy 67^th o/a

Toyota to confirm WRC return by August

Toyota are to decide whether or not they will return to the WRC some time next month (August).

Toyota withdrew from the WRC at the end of 1999. In their WRC campaign, Toyota took 3 manufacturers championships, 4 drivers championships and scored 1881 manufacturer points. Some notable drivers who drove for Toyota are Juha Kankkunen, Bjorn Waldergard, Ove Andersson, Didier Auriol, Carlos Sainz, Hannu Mikkola, Armin Schwarz and Marcus Gronholm.

Senior Toyota members were present at the Rally Portugal, and think that a reduced programme would be a better bet, possibly a European rally calender.

"Toyota wants to be engaged in motorsports in Europe and rallies have the highest media exposure." siad Toyota Motorsport chairman Tadashi Yamashina. Tadashi also said that the decision would be made 'after the summer holidays'.

Toyota withdrew from F1 last year and have been looking for another way to re-enter the motorsport arena.

Toyota's only set-back would be their finances. Toyota recorded a loss of US$4.2 billion on the 8^th May 2009. on the 16^th May 2009 they applied to the Japan Bank bailout of a reported $3 billion, the first time a Japanese car company had applied for a bailout from a state-backed Japanese bank.

South Africa's arm of Toyota developed some of the S2000 cars, the base cars being the RunX (South African version of the Corolla) and the Auris. In South Africa, Toyota Castrol Team campaign the Auris with Johnny Gemmell and Mark Cronje as drivers. Team Total run two RunX' (Corolla's) and have Jean-Pierre Damseaux and Fernando Rueda as drivers.

Hanninen rules out Maderia victory

Juho Hanninen has ruled out victory on next week's Rali Vinho Maderia, which forms the IRC's next qualifier.

Hanninen has never competed on the event before and all of his fellow competitors have, but none of them have won the tarmac island event.

Hanninen tested for a day-and-a-half in Spain last week with Skoda, and will compete in the Rally Finland in a Raimund Baumschlager prepared Skoda Fabia S2000.

“I have been improving on Tarmac, no question, but I am told there are lots and lots of blind corners and that it is also hard to find the rhythm and to make a good set of pacenotes. It won’t be easy, I will try, but I think a podium will be difficult. If I drive really well then I think fifth or sixth will be possible.” said the IRC standings leader.

Solberg sets the pace over SS1

Citroen privateer Petter Solberg has won the opening super-special stage of the 60^th anniversary of the Neste Oil Rally Finland.

Solberg set a time of 2:33.2 on the 4.19Km stage, a whole second faster local hero and Ford No.1 Mikko Hirvonen. Sebastian Loeb and Jari-Matti Latvala set third fastest time over the stage, 1.6 secs behind the flying Norwegian.

Solberg said that he was a little bit 'chicken' over the Laajavuori Superspecial, but still set the fastest time over the stage.

Ex-F1 World Champion Kimi Raikkonen set 10^th fastest time and 4 times World Champion Juha Kankkunen set 13^th fastest, 9.6 secs off first.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the Top 10.

IRDA unveil new Driver Ranking system

The International Rally Drivers Association (IRDA) has unveiled a new driver and co-driver ranking system, similar to that of the Castrol Drivers Rankings, but the IRDA rankings are limited to only rally drivers and co-drivers.

Competitors that have a licance issued by a FIA recognised body competing in an international or recognised regional championship in a modern-spec rally car (i.e. WRC, Gp.N, S2000 or S1600) can be ranked in this new coefficient system.

At the present moment Sebastian Loeb heads the standings on 3975 pts with Mikko Hirvonen second (3970 pts) and Sebastian Ogier third (3405 pts). Daniel Elena (3975 pts), Jarmo Lehtinen (3970 pts) and Julian Ingrassia (3405 pts) are the top 3 co-drivers.

The ranking system doesn't only cover competitors. It covers countries (1^st – Italy (25654 pts) 2^nd – Czech Republic (23244 pts) 3^rd – Finland (14124 pts)), cars (1^st - Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9 Gp.N (14083 pts) 2^nd – Subaru Impreza N12 (10468 pts) 3^rd – Peugeot 207 S2000 (9331 pts)) and manufacturers (1^st – Ford (17812 pts) 2^nd – Mitsubishi (16560 pts) 3^rd – Peugeot (14172 pts))

Ireland currently occupy 13^th in the countries section, with Craig Breen the highest ranked Irish driver and Paul Nagle the highest placed Irish co-driver.

Below are the Top 10 Irish drivers:

1.  Craig Breen

2.  Alastair Fisher

3.  Robert Barrable

4.  Daniel Barry

5.  Aaron MacHale

6.  Martin McCormack

7.  Alan Ring

8.  Darragh O'Riordan

9.  Sam Moffett

     Adrian McElhinney

10.  Shane Buckley

      Joseph McGonigle

Below are the Top 10 Irish co-drivers:

1.  Gareth Roberts

2.  Eugene O'Donnell

3.  Damien Connolly

4.  Dai Roberts

5.  Martin Brady

6.  Brian Murphy

7.  Kilian Duffy

8.  Allan Harryman

9.  Rory Kennedy

10.  Adrian Deasy

The late Thomas Maguire occupies joint 13th with Niall Burns

Click HERE to go to the main website

Donnelly and O'Connell to start in Lurgan Park

5 times Irish Tarmac Champion Eugene Donnelly and current leader of the Motorsport Ireland National Forestry Championship Pat O'Connell have been confirmed a entries to this year's Lurgan Park Rally.

Donnelly is due to drive the Toyota Corolla WRC that took him to three Irish Tarmac National Titles as well as taking his brother Charlie Donnelly to the Dunlop National Championship in 2006. He seeded as No.49, but will run 2^nd on the road after Kenny McKinstry. Darragh Mullen will navigate Donnelly during the event, and the car is being looked after by long-time friend of Donnelly's Derek McGeehan.

O'Connell will start in his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9 Gp.N, off the back of third place on the Donegal Forestry Rally, another counting round of the Forestry Championship.

Tom Cave takes his first win

Young British talent Tom Cave has used the gap in his IRC campaign to take part in the Coracle Stages last Sunday (25^th July).

Based in the Sweet Lamb Rally Complex, the pure gravel event provided Cave with some experience driving a 4WD car on gravel, when he drove a Subaru Impreza WRX Gp.N to victory with Craig Parry on the notes.

Usually driving a Proton Satria Neo S2000, he switched to the Impreza to gain some seat time, and took his first overall rally win., not before the brakes packed in for a time.

Cave will be back in the Impreza for the tarmac Harry Flatters Rally, which is on August 1^st.

“It was a really good day and a great result – I’m really pleased. I settled in quickly to the Impreza and found it really useful to have the mileage and, of course, the result." said Cave.

Final Impreza WRC leaves Prodrive

The final World Rally Car-spec Subaru Impreza has left Prodrive's base in Banbury, en-route to its new owner.

'WRC2008-011' has been built to the same spec of the SWRT team's works cars, which were driven by Petter Solberg and Chris Atkinson during a short campaign in 2008. Solberg scored the best finish for the car on its debut event, 2^nd on the Acropolis Rally.

Oddly, the car that Prodrive built just before this car was built was from 1997. WRC97-001 was completely restored by Prodrive for a customer who owned the car.

To make this event, the cars were presented outside Prodrive's Banbury base, where both cars, spanning 12 years in technology, were sat side-by-side outside the HQ.

Lurgan Park only 4 days away!

This weekend's Lurgan Park Rally will see drivers such as Derek McGaritty and 11 times Lurgan Park Rally winner Kenny McKinstry roll over the start ramp on Saturday (31^st).

'King of the Park' McKinstry has released his secret to winning in the 'Park': “you have to get the first stage just right, as well as the final one, plus all the stages in between, as the slightest slip can cost victory.”

Kenny and Derek will drive one of their own Subaru Impreza WRCs, but, strangely, Kenny's cars have the highest chance of winning, with talents such as Gary Jennings, Kevin Barrett and Darren Gass driving them.

In keeping with tradition, Lurgan Park has throwen up some rare entries, with many Metro 6R4s, Subaru Impreza WRC's and Gp.Ns, Lancers and many, many Escorts entering. Running between stages will be the legendary Audi Quattro, Peugeot 205 T16 and Ford RS200.

The start ramp will commence at 10:15 AM, the first stage will run at 10:30 AM and the ceremonial finish will happen at about 5:00 PM.

Event director William Fullerton said: “The event has reached such a state of sophistication over the years that without the help of many organisations and individuals the rally wouldn’t be able to take place, and on behalf of the organisers we express our sincere thanks.”

1 Kenny McKinstry/Emma McKinstry (Subaru Impreza WRC)
2 Derek McGarrity/James McKee (Subaru Impreza WRC)
3 Darren Gass/Andrew Cullen (Subaru Impreza WRC)
4 Kevin Barrett/Paul Barrett (Subaru Impreza WRC)
5 Garry Jennings/Damien McPartland (Subaru Impreza WRC)
6 Mark Doyle/Cormac Doyle (Toyota Celica Turbo 4WD)
7 Gary White/Alan Purdy (Impreza WRC)
8 Denis Biggerstaff/Graeme Stewart (Metro 6R4)
9 Brian O’Mahony/John Higgins (Metro 6R4)
10 John McGaffin/Lesley McGaffin (Impreza WRC)

Kankkunen eyes Top 10, and has Raikkonen in his sights

Four times World Rally Champion Juha Kankkunen has said that he wants a Top 10 finish on this weekend's Neste Oil Rally Finland, and has Kimi Raikkonen in his cross-hairs.

Kankkunen has contested the event an amazing 22 times, so has no lack of experience of the fast Finnish roads. He has won the event three times & finished on the podium eight times. His final Rally Finland was in 2002 with the Hyundai WRT.

However, Kankkunen will get the chance to compete in his 23^rd Rally Finland when he returns for a one-off appearance with Stobart M-Sport Ford in a Focus RS WRC for the rally's 60^th birthday.

“It is a fantastic opportunity to enjoy a World Rally Car, especially after knowing they'll disappear from the series after this season. I haven't spent much time in the latest generation cars and I know there have been a lot of changes, but I don’t foresee any undue surprises.”

“My target is a place in the top 10 and to battle with Kimi Räikkönen. Juha [Repo] last competed in this rally in 2003 where he finished eleventh so he also eager to finish inside the top ten.”

Kankkunen's team-mates will be Matthew Wilson, Henning Solberg and Mattias Therman, a young Finnish star.

MINI to return to the WRC

The manufacturer that took Paddy Hopkirk, Timo Makinen and Rauno Aaltonen to many wins in the 1960's has confirmed its return to the WRC next year.

MINI have announced that they will return to the WRC with the all-new Countryman from 2011 onwards. They will compete in various events in 2011, with the view to competing in a full WRC programme in 2012.

“I am delighted MINI will be represented on one of the most popular stages in international motorsport.” said Ian Robertson, who forms part of the BMW Board of Management “The success enjoyed on the rally circuit has made a vital contribution to the image of the brand. MINI customers have always shown great interest in motorsport. I am convinced we will add a few more chapters to our success story in rallying.

“The MINI Countryman provides an excellent basis, from which to create a competitive racing car for the world championship. In Prodrive, we have a strong and experienced partner. We will work hard together over the coming months to ensure we get the project on track right from the word go.”

Prodrive will built the cars, with only the 1.6 litre turbo engines being built be BMW Motorsport, and run the firm's cars throughout their WRC campain. Testing is due to begin the Autumn.

Dave Richards, previous boss of the Subaru World Rally Team, Benetton F1, BAR Honda F1 team and is currently boss of Prodrive and Aston Martin Racing said: “This is a very exciting new motorsport programme. During the 1960s MINI captured the imagination of the world when the tiny car took on the might of V8 powered Fords and won what was then one of the toughest motorsport events, the 4000km Monte Carlo rally.”

“I believe our new MINI will become a firm favourite of the latest generation of rally fans, just as it is adored by its millions of owners across the world. We already have a significant number of confirmed customer orders for the new MINI rally car with the first deliveries scheduled for the start of the 2011 season.”

No drivers have been announced but drivers such as double World Champion Marcus Gronholm, IRC Champion Kris Meeke, P-G Andersson, Markko Martin and loyal Prodrive customer Mads Otsberg.

"Obviously our priority is to get the best drivers, whatever nationality. But I have always tried if possible to have one British driver in the team. There are a few candidates and maybe we will go for a younger driver, in the way we did with Colin and Richard."

Gronholm has apparently already been contacted by MINI: “There was some contact a while ago. I might be interested. I would have to think. It’s tough for the whole season again, but maybe it would be good to be involved in testing and some rallies.”

MINI's announcement has received sizable praise from North One Sport CEO Simon Long. He said that MINI's return is an 'endorsement' of the recent changes to the technical regulations and sporting regulations.

He siad: "I'm delighted that a manufacturer of BMW's status has chosen the WRC for MINI's rallying programme. Obviously it's great to see the return of the iconic MINI, a car with such a strong rallying pedigree, but it also means that with MINI, Ford and Citroen, the WRC is supported by three of the most exciting brands in the global car market.

"One of our priorities as WRC promoter has been to attract new manufacturers and teams, and we've worked hard to ensure the sport works for them in marketing terms. The new World Rally Car specification for 2011 has made cars cheaper to build and closer to the models in the showroom, while next year's calendar works not only in commercial terms but also delivers a diverse and competitive championship. MINI's decision is largely marketing driven and a major vote of confidence in the work done so far."

Richards has also released MINI's aims for the next three years: "The target is clearly to be competitive from the outset and we have set a target with BMW and MINI of the world title within the next three years," he told Reuters. "We (Prodrive) have got six world titles to our credit already so we've been there before and know what it takes to do it. We are setting about that task very meticulously.”