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!
Rally Sweden day one in a nutshell!
I could write a blog about today’s goings on in the opening round of the 2010 World Rally Championship in Sweden however you’ve 
probably read it all already through the WRC website and other sources. And to be honest me putting up the same information in new words would only bored you to tears.
So I’m going to put a few little nuggets of information on here that I found interesting – I hope you do to.
First off I probably should give a mention to Hirvonen who now leads the rally with Loeb 8.4 seconds behind and Sordo a further 3.8 behind him. A great drive from all the top three drivers who seemed to be the only ones to pass through the stages with next to no drama.
Now, I don’t know how many of you watched the Dave WRC preview on Sunday but there was a rather good feature with Petter Solberg in which he explained how to drive in the snow and use snowbanks to your advantage. It really was a great feature although I get the feeling he didn’t listen to his own words. Last night during Karlstad Super Special he expertly put the car in a snowbank. OK, so it didn’t cost him masses and masses of time but I did love the irony.
Kimi should also have paid attention to Petter’s advice because he too found himself in a snow bank in ss6 – unfortunately for him it did cost him masses of time. Over 20 minutes in fact. According to Kaj Lindström their windscreen misted up and they slid into a ditch.
But this is beside the point. What struck me most about his driving today was that in ss7 he set a time that was faster than Matt Wilson’s and Petter Solbergs. Now I know many people will say, ‘but Matt and Petter had crashes and their cars were damaged.’ – to the people who will say this… Räikkönen also crashed and most probably damaged his car too.
So all in all I think that shows promise.
The final thing I found interesting was in the S-WRC. That little Fiesta I love so much (my reasoning can be seen in a previous post) seems to have a small issue with its back window. Two separate cars apparently lost their rear windscreens – one of which was driven by Prokop.
I really do have a slight bias towards this car and I hope this is merely a strange co-incidence.
So that was day one in a ridiculously small nutshell. I know a lot of people will have had their first WRC experience today (we all know the interest a certain Finn has brought to the sport) so I hope you enjoyed it! Believe me, you will now be hooked.
Image from http://www.wrc.com
The Fiesta’s WRC Debut
M-sport will be showing off th
eir S2000 Ford Fiesta in it’s WRC debut this weekend. The car was driven to an incredible victory in the IRC Monte Carlo last month by Mikko Hirvonen and later won the Qatar rally with Nasser Al-Attiyah at the wheel.
Four drivers in total will use Fiesta’s in Sweden – Bernardo Sousa and Andreas Mikkelsen, in cars prepared by M-Sport, while Martin Prokop and Janne Tuohino will be competing for private teams.
The experience of double world champion Marcus Grönholm has been used to the full in the lead up, with him completing 230km of testing in the snow to help find a good set-up for the Fiesta drivers (Grönholm, of course, is competing in the Focus this weekend). Portuguese pilot Sousa in particular will find this information helpful, as he doesn’t have masses of experience in these conditions.
Now I’m probably a little bit biased towards this car for the simple reason that I was lucky enough to have a tour of M-Sports factory in Cumbria and saw these cars being built. And I was so impressed that it has only taken 9 months to design, engineer and get out to the races. The pride that everyone was showing towards this car was also quite infectious so yes, I do have a soft spot for this Fiesta!
M-Sport Managing Director Malcolm Wilson said:
“After two incredible victories in Monte Carlo and Qatar, we are now going to another extreme of conditions at Rally Sweden. We are confident that the car can maintain its performance and we’ve been boosted by the fact that Marcus Grönholm has been helping out with the testing; he’s come up with a really good base setting for Sweden. The M-Sport drivers will all have access to the information and it’s all part of the service to try and give our customers the best possible support. We’ve had a great season launch in Paris this week and the S-WRC has certainly got the potential to be a very exciting championship; there’s lots of young drivers signed up and it will really spice things up.”
The Fiesta in numbers…
-Ford 1998cc Pipo built I4 Duratec S2000 engine. Four cylinders, 16 valves.
-280 bhp at 8000 rpm.
-Length: 3958mm. Width: 1820mm. Wheelbase: 2489mm. Weight: 1200kg minimum
Through Shakedown And Stage 