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Old 08-11-2003, 12:48 AM   #1
geekdiggy
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Default interesting eventful rally of finland

-only two non-finnish drivers have ever won rally of finland (sainz twice and auriol once)

- markko martin becomes third non finnish driver to win rally finland

- beef park celebrates his 50th WRC rally, Richard Burns celebrates his 100th

- gronholm & makinen have 8 rally finland wins between them: makinen winning 5 times and gronholm 3

- gronholm, rovenperra, hirvonen, vallimaki and gardemiester (all competitive finnish drivers) retire from rally finland

- vallimaki and duval retire from hitting the exact same rock, sainz suffers damage to his car on the rock as well

- the highest finish for a finnish driver in this year's rally finland was 6th by tommi makinen

- the last time there were no finnish drivers on the podium in rally finland: 1959

- three non-works finnish drivers finish in the top 10, two of them in the points

- ari vatanen, the 1981 world champ who hasn't competed in a wrc event in 5 years, cruises to an 11th place finish

interesting battles:

gronholm vs martin for 1st place in days one and two, trading the position twice until gronholm retired from ripping a wheel off

solberg vs burns vs sainz for 2nd place at the start of day two, all three seperated by .5 seconds

solberg vs burns for 2nd place: burns up on solberg by 1.8 seconds going into the final stage, solberg with a 1.8 second advantage until the second to the last split bringing them dead even, solberg beating burns by 1.2 seconds on the stage and taking second place overall

- martin wins his second event of his season/career

- michellin wins it's 200th rally



the most interesting rally EVER
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Old 08-11-2003, 03:16 AM   #2
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It was great! Eurosport's coverage was only 30 min every day, as always, but already enough! Martin is already a champion, young and skilled.. and the last evolution of the Focus seems perfect and reliable.
Gronholm was again struck by bad luck, this is sure the most difficult season of the last years for him... very unlucky...
Not to talk about Rovanpera.
Luckily Burns managed to be on the podium and he clearly demonstrate that the new point system is really usefull to reward consistency, since he is still on the lead in the general standings.
Solberg deserve better. He is a potential contender for the tytle, but also for him, lot of bad luck lately. Finally a good result!
Super-nice to see Vatanen back in WRC! And 11th is a great result! I want him back for a full season!!
Mcrae keeps doing bad, IMO he'll never won the WRC Championship again.. I just wonder when all the hype surrounding him will fade away.. since he won his first championship, the youngest winner, Colin was labeled as a Champion, flawless.. for the last years he always managed average results, always pretty far from the title... ok, I know, he was second more than once, and I think the worst season he was sixth or seventh, but hell, he won a single WRC title since 1995...
Sainz is one of my fav rally drivers ever. So cool, fast and consistent. this can be his season, because he always is consistent, rarely not in the points, and the standings shows it: 49 points for Burns, 44 for Sainz! Go King Carlos, GO!
But the season is still long, and the title che also go to Solberg, Martin or Gronholm, since retirement are not rare and can struck everybody.

As for the teams, well, Peugeot's lead is smaller the time passing, and now only 4 points separate Citroen from the first step of the podium. Ford and Subaru did the good operation this week end, with 10 and 11 points and both teams are now side by side, batling for third place in the general stangings. As for 5th and 6th, at the beginning of the season, it was clear the wooden spoon was for Hyundai, since it scored points only in the first event... now it's different.. during the last three rallies, the Accents always managed to bring home something, while the new Fabia never did good (at Cyprus it was still the Octavia), so nothing is settled...

This season IMO is one of the best of the last years! Finally here (like in F1), the games will be closed only with UK rally or in Spain maybe... very nice, very very nice!
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Old 08-11-2003, 04:32 AM   #3
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this maybe a bit off topic, but i havent really been following rallying that closely anymore. Just wondering when Mitsubishi will make their comeback, and have they even mentioned anything yet. It just seems to be missing without the beloved Evos.
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Old 08-11-2003, 05:09 AM   #4
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Their idea is to do the whole 2004 season and so far their confirmed drivers are as far as I know, Kristian Solhberg and Paasonen if I'm not wrong... while Alister Mcrae is w/o a wheel at the moment..
But there are plenty of rumors about Makinen coming back to Mitsu..
We will know more in the next months

And BTW, in 2004 the 206 WRC will be no more, as Peugeot will race with the 307 WRC.. I'm very curious!
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Old 08-11-2003, 05:33 AM   #5
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its good to hear they are making a full comeback next season. They have really gone downhill since losing Makkinen. Do you think it was their new drivers or the Evo7 that just wasnt up to standard? And what do you think of their hopes next season? They dont really have big names in their driver lineups, would be nice to see Tommi back.

Im gonna miss the 206, but the 307 is a stunning car. Its always nice and exciting to see "new" cars in the championship and how they perform. The 206 has proven to be a winner and very capable of continuing for a long time to come, so the expectations for the 307 will be really high.
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Old 08-11-2003, 05:35 AM   #6
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Yeah, expectations for the 307 are very high for sure... and we already saw winning cars doing great from their first season (206 and Xsara...)... but we will see..

As for the Mitsu, to bad they gave up the idea of a Colt WRC.. and IMO, with their drivers line up, they risk to struggle just a little faster than the Accent and Skoda
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Old 08-11-2003, 05:45 AM   #7
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seriously would people really want to see mitsu replace the lancer with the colt? The Evo is like the icon car for mitsubishi and Im sure they are making a lot money with these special line of cars. And the colt isnt what i call a really "exciting" car to begin with, would people buy colts so they could have their own WRC car? i dont see the market for that especially with competition from focus and 206.

It will be sad if the evos are racing with the likes of accent and skoda next year. I hope they took this time off to focus the devopement of their cars. Im assuming they will run the Evo8s?
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Old 08-11-2003, 07:09 AM   #8
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LOL, I see your point, but the Colt WRC prototype I saw while ago on the net was pretty mean

But I agree, I'd like to see the Lancer back on top fo the ladder!
But the last season with the VII was a disaster, and not only the drivers fault IMO.
I hope the new evolution will be better, reliable and fast! I can't wait for 2004, no doubt!

And yes, I suppose they'll use the VIII
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Old 08-11-2003, 07:51 AM   #9
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people like you two make people like me hate to make a thread because it goes completely off topic.


ANYWAY BACK TO THE TOPIC OF FINLAD 2003


am i the only one who fell into a clinical depression after both rovenperra and gronholm retired FROM THEIR HOME RALLY?! after that happened i wanted to commit suicide....like damn

i've noticed that mcrae's had a run of bad luck in finland with a crash this year and a huge fire last year. well shit happens. i agree with tt that mcrae's lived his championship reputation far too long. from what i hear his 1995 season was very memorable but an 8 year cushion is ridiculous, i mean he isn't exactly dazzling this year. but even though he's had bad fortunes this year, i hope he doesn't retire. he's one of the few who keeps rallies interesting. i'd like to see him and alister at hyundai with schwarz, and boot loix over to skoda
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Old 08-11-2003, 08:02 AM   #10
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I don't think we were COMPLETELY offtopic.. anyway...

Yes, I'm always sorry when Gronholm and especially Rovanpera can't cross the finish line

especially Harri, that is a great driver IMO and that deserve better results!

As for McRae, I don't care less.. I never like him (because of all the hype...), and I'm happy that Loeb will be the first driver in 2004
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Old 08-11-2003, 09:21 AM   #11
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I dont follow rallying too much so i never saw the prototype, im sure it looked really good, but i always think of a colt as a cheap 2 door car, so its hard to build up an image from there. its like taking the LADA and saying they would make it into a WRC car, but then again i dont think its fair to bring it to such a low level....

From what i read, Mitsu took the year off to refocus themselves, take a mini-break if you like, and re-engergize themselves for the coming season. I think they have the engineering talent to put themselves back up to the top, but i dont really know anything about their driver lineup. I hope the Evo8 gives them the boost they need too.

I wouldnt call this completely off topic, we are still talking about rallying. dont dont really show much footage of rallying here in aussie, most of stuff i get from news nowadays.

i dont like colin mcrae too much too, he seems a bit stuck up when he speaks, but thats the only reason...
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Old 08-12-2003, 12:16 PM   #12
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I know it's a little OT, but useless to open a topic just for that...

Maybe the first testing for the 307 CC WRC?


http://rallyfc.iespana.es/rallyfc/spypeugeot307.jpg
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Old 08-12-2003, 10:51 PM   #13
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its all good as long as they dont use those horrid rims....lol
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Old 08-12-2003, 11:11 PM   #14
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yes that's the 307 WRC and yes it's a testing pic. i think in that pic they were transporting it from one test site to a different place or something like that. covering the body and changing the wheels before transporting makes for absolute secrecy
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Old 08-12-2003, 11:23 PM   #15
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if its infact WRC they are making a big mistake

stick with the 206

me? i knew marcco was gonna win i knew if that intake problem wouldn't come he could easily out do the peugoets...

now for next year marco yoru my man!
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