Rally of
Sweden was driven in the last weekend. The rally turned out to be one of the
most exciting and dramatic rallies for a while. Lots of this is thanks to the
new rules which were introduced for 2015.
First
“victim” of these rules was Volkwagen’s Jari-Matti Latvala. He was in a tight
battle against his team-mate Sébastien Ogier who was leading the rally. Both
went off the road in the same stage: Ogier had a spin and was off from
Latvala’s pace by some 30 seconds. Had it been season 2014, Latvala would have
been given information about Ogier’s problems. But this is 2015. The rules now
ban giving split-time information to the drivers. This is why Latvala had no
idea that he was practically in the lead and kept pushing – and went off the
road right before the end of the stage and lost over 8 minutes. His battle for
win was over.
The new
rules also say that the championship leader must be first on the road on Friday
and Saturday. On Sunday the order will be reversed. This is a huge disadvantage
for the championship leader in most cases. One can say that the rule is not
fair: it punishes the driver who has done the best job – on the other hand, it
makes the rallies more exciting. This is what we saw in Sweden. The victory
battle went down to the wire and on last stage Andreas Mikkelsen, Ogier and
Thierry Neuville all had a chance to claim victory. The last stage was full of
drama as Mikkelsen had a spin and he lost his small lead and Ogier claimed the
victory – despite driving in difficult road position in first days. Battles
like these are what WRC needs!
Next event
will be in Mexico and Ogier will suffer from being first on the road in this
gravel rally. This opens the door to rivals, such as Latvala, Neuville,
Mikkelsen. But there are more challengers who have a good road position for the
first days: Mads Ostberg, Kris Meeke and Dani Sordo. It is difficult to draw
conclusions based only on Monte Carlo and Sweden, but it appears that Citroen
and Hyundai have developed their cars well and are now – thanks to the running
order too – in a position they can actually challenge the Volkswagens. Ford
will get its updates later this spring and Hyundai will introduce next version
of their rally car. Keeping all this in mind, it is very likely that we see
winners outside Volkswagen team this year. If I were to bet, I would place my
money on Meeke, Neuville and Sordo.