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 7^th 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!