Official WRC thread

Thankyou sir!!! ^^^ Voice of reason.

Derek McGarrity is of the opinion that Prodrive will most likely run the cars anyway as long as they find a sponsor.

I also think that if this is true, and it certainly makes sense, that they may do a bit better than under the Subaru umbrella due to the decisions being made by Prodrive, not FHI.
 
Solberg didn't find a solution in time for Rally Ireland... he said he don't want to do something 97%, but go for the full 100%, he's now trying to get something going for a "comeback" at Rally Norway.

this is according to norwegian newspapers.
Norwegian Newspaper in Norwegian though...
 
Just saw this :-(

Petter Solberg has an epic fail and marks the end of SWRT by falling on his ass :-(

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLKnliJC9RU&eurl=http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/24/video-petter-solberg-gets-a-subaru-boo-boo/&feature=player_embedded[/YOUTUBE]
 
Yep woop woop!!! Go Aussie!!! Another Aussie will be in the car driven by the Russian dude.
 
You could too for the small sum of 180,000 Euros......per rally!!
 
Sweet, good to hear Atkinson has a drive for 2009.
 
But only one round from what I read ?

Still sucks.

I didn't think he was going to get a full season, but just one round that truly does suck. But I suppose it's got to be better then nothing. (I haven't read the article yet.)
 
I didn't think he was going to get a full season, but just one round that truly does suck. But I suppose it's got to be better then nothing. (I haven't read the article yet.)
Lol, too busy ? >_>

RallySport Mag said:
...while Chris Atkinson is due to take part in the first round of the new year, the Rally Ireland, in a Citro?n C4 WRC"....

Well.... there ya go. I imagine they are treating him the way Ford treats Francois... a tarmac specialist. After all he did get 3rd in the Monte this year...
 
How many rounds Atko does this year is entirely dependent on how much money he finds. Shouldn't be a problem with his background.

Rautenbach is doing all the rounds (money talks) Ogier is doing a fair few as is Novikov.
 
Starting the news side on 2009, we have the following items that have not been mentioned here...
- Henning Solberg has confirmed he'll do a full season in 2009 with Ford Focus WRC (link)
- Petter Solberg is free from his deal with Subaru (as expected) and is free to drive any car he wishes to in 2009. (link)


I know that Atkinson heading to Citro?n is old news by now but I have to say, I'm really looking forward to Rally Ireland to see how he'll do. To me the lad has been very good on the last two seasons but it has been tricky to determine how good because of the dodgy car. Now he has a proper car under him and it will be extremely interesting to see how he'll do. Hopefully he'll get more rounds with the team (apparently that's the team's intention). Now, we just need Petter to find a C4 or a Focus to run with and we'll have a really interesting set of potential rally winners around...
 
The big trouble with Chris in a C4 is that 1. the car won't be exactly Seb and Dani spec and 2. I can't see him being allowed to challenge Sebastien especially for the lead, not that I think he will get close to Seb on a tarmac event.
 
The big trouble with Chris in a C4 is that 1. the car won't be exactly Seb and Dani spec and 2. I can't see him being allowed to challenge Sebastien especially for the lead, not that I think he will get close to Seb on a tarmac event.

You are propably right, he's unlikely to match Seb for the overall honours. But he has been consistently strong in Monte which is somewhat similar to Ireland (as in, not smooth tarmac and varying weather conditions) and I recon he ought to give everyone else hard time.
 
The entry list for Rally Ireland has been published. There are 11 drivers who could be considered regulars this year, the latest addition being Urmo Aava who apparently will do eight rallies for the Stobart team this year. Sadly the lineup of local drivers is not as tough as I thought it might be. The entry list has all three McHales, Gareth Jones, Tim McNulty, Eamonn Boland, but no Eugene Donnelly, Mark Higgins or the youngsters Kris Meeke or Guy Wilks.

Still, should be an interesting event. Only three weeks to go...
 
Surprised Austin is still running, he was going to retire 3 years ago! Unless Gareth Jones has substantially improved I can only see Gareth McHale having the talent and resources to approach the top 10. Wilks would have tore up the field.
 
Patrik Flodin (the swedish guy who was busted for speeding) won't be missing any races in the group n championship. His license will be returned.
 
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