Where I’ll be next week
If you follow me on Twitter you may have picked up on some of my overly excited tweets I’ve been posting for the past few weeks – I’m going on holiday!
I’m heading to the Spanish Formula One GP! I know, I know – cue ‘but Spain is so boring/no overtaking’ but do you know what?! I don’t care.
I went there last year and the circuit’s facilities are just incredible, the fans are so intense and friendly and to top it off it was hot last year (I hope it will be again this year).
So me and my dad are setting off tomorrow night to catch our eurotunnel to France then we’re are driving the rest of the way to Barcelona – with a few stops in this year instead of just flooring it.
My mum and brother who are also F1 fans are heading down to meet us later in the week.
This means I’m going to miss Rally NZ – gutted. But hey! I’ll be watching some racing live – can’t complain.
I’ve installed a few apps on my phone which should mean I can tweet at the track but I have no idea if they will even work! Knowing my luck they wont!! Also hoping the campsites wifi is good enough to listen to TotalRally because with a glass of Spanish wine that will be brilliant!
Anyway I’ll miss tweeting all of you! Keep an eye out for me on the tele! 🙂
Rally Turkey Shakedown Times
Petter Solberg’s amazing website never fails to produce! Here are a list of shakedown times from this mornings session. Make sure you check out his website because it’s awesome!
Shakedown times;
Loeb, Citroën 2.30,8
Sordo, Citroën 2.31,1
Hirvonen, Ford 2.31,7
Henning, Ford 2.32,2
Petter, Citroën 2.32,5
Ogier, Citroën 2.32,5
Räikkönen, Citroën 2.33,1
Latvala, Ford 2.33,1
Villagra, Ford 2.33,7
Wilson, Ford 2.35,2
Jordan Rally Shakedown Timings 2010
Shakedown times from Petter Solbergs website:
Loeb, Citroën 1.13,4
Petter, Citroën 1.13,5
Sordo, Citroën 1.13,5
Latvala, Ford 1.13,7
Hirvonen, Ford 1.13,8
Ogier, Citroën 1.13,9
Villagra, Ford 1.15,1
Wilson, Ford 1.15,2
Henning, Ford 1.15,3
Kimi, Citroen 1:16.2
Petter’s site is amazing check it out here… http://www.pettersolberg.com/
Gold Medalist Amy Williams’ Interview
I missed some of the rally action over the weekend and didn’t have time yesterday to write a blog however I do have something that for you sport fans should make up for it – an interview with Olympic gold medallist Amy Williams who stormed to an impressive win in Vancouver last month. She is the UK’s first single gold medallist for 30 years! What an achievement.
Yesterday was Bath’s half marathon, one of the largest and most popular in the country. The course is run through the beautiful streets of the city in a loop that is covered twice by all 15, 000 competitors. A cold morning greeted all participants as temperatures hovered around freezing however soon enough the sun rose over the tall buildings and by the time the race got underway sweatshirts were thrown away and lining the streets (before anyone worries about chucking all those clothes away fear not, it will all be donated to charity shops.)
However, talk of the day was on the start line. Baths very own Amy Williams was waving on spectators and minutes after the race begun we at we’re lucky enough to have a chat with her.
The voice on the audio is presenter Charlie Vernon – keep an ear out for her in the future reporting from The Brits or something like that. For now though she is our entertainment correspondent.
I have to say that I thought she was very nice. It must be extremely difficult now that everyone knows her. She didn’t even have a PR person to make things easier on herself. So just wanted to say how much I appreciated her time.
-If you check my twitter page there are also some pictures from the interview. www.twitter.com/jodie_kemp
Rally Mexico – Day One
Just a quick run down as to what happened yesterday in Mexico. Firstly road position obviously played a huge part in the outcome. It was thought before the rally that Hirvonen would struggle as road cleaner and that running around 7th on the road would be the ideal place to start. This definitely seemed to be the case. Mikko Hirvonen lost masses of time to his competitors as he cleared the way for everyone behind him. In stage one road position wasn’t his only problem, he hit a rock which didn’t seem to slow him however it may well have knocked his confidence for the rest of the day – as he came to the end of the stage his bumper (as well as team-mate Latvala’s) was hanging off. The Ford seemingly not as quick as the Citroens.
Ken Blocks first stage in the Focus looked to be ok however he did hit something that caused his door to buckle. Although I have to say he is quickly becoming one of my favourite drivers because of his unwavering enthusiasm. After stage one he had this to say,
Damn that was fun! That was one funnest stages of my life: The car is incredible and this was the best stage of my life!
Petter Solberg was running in a race of his own. Somehow he managed to find a teleportation device en route and knock an astonishing 9.8 seconds off of Ogier’s time.
For me Ogier is definitely one of the big stars of the future and personally I think Sordo’s sear next year isn’t safe while Ogier is driving as well as he has been recently.
Stage two was also as dramatic and yet again Hirvonen was right down the order. Loeb faired better than Hirvonen but was still blown away buy Ogier and Solberg. In fact this was pretty much how Mikko’s day continued much to his despair.
Kimi Räikkönen lost 30 minutes stuck on stage after a fuel connection came loose and brought the car to a grinding halt. Eventually he got moving but it put an end to his competitive rally hopes.
Moving onto stage three and inevitably Henning Solberg lost part of his car – let’s be honest that’s his thing isn’t it! And he wasn’t the only Ford with problems (surprise, surprise. Just not their rally) Matt Wilson took the speed bumps with too much speed which resulted in his windscreen caracking.
Next up with the super fast Coca Cola stage. The big surprise here was that all 5 Citroens clinched the top 5 places. Räikkönen in this stage showed real potential for the rallies later in the year.
Räikkönen’s terrible day continued in the afternoon loops with a roll on SS7. Hopefully both he and Kaj are OK, however with recent back issues including surgery it will surely have caused him some discomfort. Kaj is yet to finish a rally Mexico in all his attempts!
The rest of the day’s events carried on as the morning begun. Hirvonen struggled while Petter and Ogier dominated. Although Ken Block hit a cactus which pretty much made my day!
Petter will have the worst of the road positions for day 2 as he turns road sweeper, which may give Loeb and Hirvonen the chance to catch up some. However it would seem that Petter and Ogier are defiantly the ones to watch.
The Motors TV coverage was, once again, a sham with the commentator commenting that we were in Australia instead of Mexico while all the time sounding like he was reporting from the moon. The telephone line was inaudible at times. Motor’s TV get your act together. However, their live updates here http://www.motorstv.com/car/rally/wrc/live/live-mexico-rally-day-1 are rather good!
Rally Mexico Press Conference
I hate to do this (copy and paste) however I just came back from a party and figured I’d post this and maybe analyse anything interesting tomorrow!
Present:
Jari-Matti Latvala, BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team
Sébastien Ogier, Citroën Junior Team
Dani Sordo, Citroën Total World Rally Team
Ken Block, Monster World Rally Team
Welcome to the pre-event FIA press conference.
Shakedown timings for Rally Mexico
If you haven’t already seen the timings for the ‘top’ drivers (I hesitated to use that word) here they are…
1. P. SOLBERG. Citroen C4 WRC. 2:51.7
2. SORDO. Citroen C4 WRC. 2:51.8
3. OGIER. Citroen C4 WRC. 2:51.9
4. LOEB. Citroen C4 WRC. 2:52.5
5. RAIKKONEN. Citroen C4 WRC. 2:54.2
6. HIRVONEN. Ford Focus RS WRC 09. 2:55.3
7. H.SOLBERG. Ford Focus RS WRC 08. 2:56.2
8. VILLAGRA. Ford Focus RS WRC 08. 2:56.4
9. WILSON. Ford Focus RS WRC 08. 2:59.9
10. LATVALA. Ford Focus RS WRC 09. 3:00.1
11. BLOCK. Ford Focus RS WRC 08. 3:04.6
Many drivers encountered front end damage including Petter Solberg, Dani Sordo, Mikko Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala.
Hirvonen encounters Mexican Police
Reports have emerged from Mexico that Mikko Hirvonen had his car temporarily towed away today!
From what I’ve read it seems to be his recce car that caused the problem (although I can’t be sure because google translate isn’t really helping me on this one!) after he parked it in an area that it shouldn’t be. Luckily his mechanics managed to retrieve it from the police and Mikko was then able to carry on.
All in all it seems like a bit of a misunderstanding!
If you know anymore – or I have got the completely wrong end of the stick with the translations let me know!
Press conference info for Rally Mexico
The drivers attending tomorrow’s (Thursdays) press conference are as follows…
Dani Sordo
Jari-Matti Latvala
Sébastien Ogier
Ken Block
As with Kimi Räikkönen in Sweden I think we can expect the majority of questions to come Ken’s way. Hopefully h’ell have left that lightsaber thing in his hotel room…
If there are any quotes that particularly stand out for me I’ll post them here!
This kid’s pretty cool…
Ok, I don’t usually do this because it’s not WRC related (although the kid in the video does mention Ford!) And if you follow me on twitter (@Jodie_Kemp) then you may have already seen me post this.
I occasionally help out at a playgroup where my mother works and this little kid (he’s just 4, I think) never used to speak to anyone. You had to practically bribe him with milk and fruit to get him to say anything. Then all of a sudden he comes back after the 6 week summer break and talks – a lot.
But he doesn’t just talk about anything – he talks about cars. For some reason he has managed to memorize car names, logos and can recognise them on the street and in books. I’m telling you, he is the next Jeremy Clarkson!
The video takes a while to get going but when he does he’s pretty good at identifying the cars. It’s not put on, believe me, you can test him in the street and he will pick out Vauxhall, Ford and VW’s etc…
Bless him…
Through Shakedown And Stage 