Welcome back to WRC season 2012! After about a month and a little more break, WRC returns to Rally Finland . It is the 8-times series consec...
Welcome back to WRC season 2012!
After about a month and a little more break, WRC returns to Rally Finland. It is the 8-times series consecutive unbeaten World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb the man to beat who won here last year. Loeb's team-mate Finnish & Citroen WRT's Mikko Hirvonen who can put a challenge [minus team orders]. He lost out the last event as he crashed in the very first stage at the NORF 2011. The top order 5 are the contenders for this rally, which is mostly dominated by the Scandinavians Mikko's former team-mate and Ford WRT's Jari-Matti Latvala & now Ford WRT's no1 driver Petter Solberg's & Prodrive Mini WRC team's Daniel Sordo is yet another non-Scandinavian who has the potential, however he is missing from the action. The list is pretty long, however, its the top5 who would be needing those vital big numbers into their career points.
Below top 5, the Russian Evgeny Novikov, Finnish Jari Ketoma [supported by DMack Tires] both in Ford Fiesta WRC cars. Thierry Neuville in the Citroen Junior WRT, Qatari Nasser Al-Attiyah's car will be piloted by former Subaru WRT driver Australian Chris Atkinson. American Ken Block is back in his ride, so is Norwegian Mads Ostberg. The list is long, so its better managed in the Entry list here.
Finally a teaser video for the starter!
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Day [0] - Shakedown / Qualifier Stage
The Qualifying is the new term/format for the now obsolete 'Shakedown', however the new one gives the power to the fastest driver to choose the road position rather than the Championship leader to lead the opening day's pack and then to go below the order if he is still leading. Below here are a couple of videos of the Qualifying for the Race later on.
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Day 1 : The first day had 3 special stages, second being a spectator friendly in the specially made for rally shows in Jokimaa, Finland.
Here is a Quick highlights video of opening day.
Official Video:
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Day 2 : It was the more dramatic day of the rally, where the hard pushers had catastrophic results. Evgeny Novikov crashed out of a fast right hander corner after going wide & rolling in SS7, however!! He managed to get going and finished the stage and the following SS08 before heading to service. The car looked too much damaged, but it turned out to be more of a cosmetic rather functional. Atleast the aerodynamics was impaired, but little did that affect the driver in keeping his pace as it was before.
Paul Nobre had an excursion off the stage in his Mini WRC & had to retire. In the top order 5, there was no changed on the leaderboard.
More updates soon!
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A Complete 52 minutes of action Review from Rally Finland here below!
From our [Playlist] WRC 2012 - 62nd Rally Finland.
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