WRC Update: Rally New Zealand Review

What a weekend! With over 300 km of competitve stages, the New Zealand rally offered enough gravel to pick out of your teeth for days to come. The weather held off and the light gravel stages made for some pretty impressive driving and some very interesting tactics. On the first day, Jarri-Matti Latvala slowed before the last stage of the day to force two cars ahead of him to clear a lot of the loose gravel. And again, on the second day, rally leader Sebastien Loeb played the same card to stick Jarri-Matti and Mikko Hirvonen with the onerous duty of "road sweepers." This first car or cars help to push the loose gravel out of the way for the trailing cars, leaving them with a much clearer line, better traction, and a pronounced advantage. More…

There were plenty more antics as well—Chris Atkinson had a big crash on Day 1, ending his rally for the day, though he was able to regain his spot on the second day to gain more experience on this particular  course.

Petter Solberg was the last remaining Subaru in the rally and was estatic to finish 4th. I’m sure he would have liked a podium finish, but coming in 4th is a great result for the new Impreza.

Another great bit of news was the fact that PG Andersson and Toni Gardermeister, flying the flag for the Suzuki SX4 in its maiden year of the WRC finished 6th and 7th respectively.

With the injured Gigi Galli out for the rest of the team, Francois Duval was flying the flag for the VK Stobart Team, but in traditional Duval fashion, he ended the rally crashing out on the 2nd to last stage. Duval is known for not doing so well on gravel rallies, but he is a tarmac ace and that’s why Ford hired him this season. In other Ford news, Jarri-Matti had a big crash on the second-to-last stage, bringing his total to 3 DNF’s this season. Mikko Hirvonen pushed a little too hard and caught a bank, giving him a puncture that spun him out—he ended up losing valuable time and sank from 1st to 3rd at the end of the day. Mikko was at a loss for words at the end of the day—you could tell he was really upset as his final words at the end of the rally were, "Game over."

Next up is Corsica a switch back to the blacktop. Stay tuned!