2008 Rallye Deutschland Review

This was the weekend that Jarri-Matti Latvala would love to forget. With a pace note on the opening day that sent him and his co-driver into a violent crash, his car and his confidence never recovered. He was able to finish the stage, but the car wasn’t the same afterwards. He also had another off that sent him into a field on the 2nd day, but he only lost a few seconds. Unfortunately though, it wasn’t enough and he didn’t finish in any top point-scoring positions.

No, this rally belonged to the Citroen C4 Team of Sebastien Loeb and Danni Sordo, who scored a 1-2 finish, making it was the 7th time Loeb has won here since the race’s inception. It was a big win for him and he did it in style, finishing a full 47 seconds ahead of his teammate.  More…

It was also a great weekend for the Subaru drivers, who are still testing their 2008 Impreza—this was its first outing on a pure asphalt rally. With no mistakes and no reliability issues, the Subarus finished 5th and 6th overall, 2 and half minutes behind the leader, which may indicate a little more work needs to be done. Nonetheless, they were still happy to be up in points.

Superstar Gigi Galli had a big accident on the opening day which canceled the stage and required him to be airlifted to a local hospital. In good spirits despite having three pins put in his left femur, Galli spoke of how his co-driver and the rescue crew were on the ball and were there to help him as quickly as possible. On a lighter note, Gigi had some unexpected visitors after the rally: all of the drivers showed up, wearing only their fireproof racing underwear, to check on him at the hospital.

Following the Rallye Deutschland, the teams will move halfway around the world to Rally New Zealand, where they leave the asphalt for the soft NZ soil. Last year it was a great battle between Marcus Gronholm and Sebastien Loeb, with only three-tenths of a second between first and second place after 350 blistering kms of competition. Let’s see what happens this year!