Listen to Pertti Lappalainen and Henri Haapamäki’s summary of the World Rally Championship in Sardinia and four hot arguments for Haapamäki below or directly from Areena. The statements and answers in text form can be found in the article below.
The World Rally Championship in Sardinia ended after a dramatic finish Ott Tänak too to the victory party. by Thierry Neuville after being suspended on Saturday, the overall standings of the World Series got new laps and the gap between the top drivers narrowed.
Toyota’s number one driver this season Elfyn Evans wandered in the shadows through the weekend, but Sebastien Ogier was to bring the team a competition victory. However, the victory ended with a flat tire in the final special test.
– Once upon a time, the multi-master had bad luck. Power had nothing to do, but instead of backing up in the previous special tests of the day, he could have tried to keep the gap bigger, ‘s expert Henri Haapamäki analyze the dizzying final solution.
Tänak and Neuville receive praise from an expert. Except for his driving mistake on Saturday, Neuville was strong and clearly kept a strong pace on Sunday as the first car on the route.
– It’s great to see that Tänak has come out of his shell, so to speak. A really mature performance from Neuville after Saturday’s outing from a bad starting position, Haapamäki assessed.
Special praise goes to those who drove their Toyota to victory in the WRC2 class Sami Pajari. The 22-year-old driver was convincingly confident and at the same time really fast throughout the weekend in challenging conditions.
– You can’t ask for anything more. Showed that he can control the situation. It may be that at some point a factory overall will be found for Pajar as well, Haapamäki refers to a possible place behind the wheel of Toyota’s rally1 car in the future.
The rally season crosses its halfway point in the next World Rally Championship in Poland, so we presented the expert with four statements regarding the power relations at the moment and with an eye to the rest of the season.
Four arguments for Henri Haapamäki
1. Elfyn Evans has dropped out of the World Championship fight. Justification: At no point in the early season has Evans’ speed been at the level of Neuville’s or Tänak’s top speed. There have also been setbacks in recent rallies and the British driver’s performance seems to be underwhelming.
Haapamäki answers:
Must agree. Quite a course change is needed to be able to talk about championship driving. Of course, others may have crashes and technical problems in several rallies in a row.
If the drivers are honestly made to drive racing cars, you have to be a pretty nuclear physicist to claim that Evans is the fastest and best of the bunch. Not the brightest in the world championship, but Neuville and Tänak have to be pushed to the front.
2. This season, Thierry Neuville and Ott Tänak won’t decide the world championship until the last two rallies. Reasoning: The new points calculation system keeps the points differences between the drivers small anyway this season, and Tänak and Neuville are currently very evenly matched, with slightly different strengths.
I agree. Interestingly, they drive in the same team. How will the balance of power be distributed if the last rallies are fought for individual points? Well, maybe the team gives a free hand in the spirit of “let the boys do the work”.
Brand mastery matters are really important though. If they end up in Hyundai’s pocket as the season progresses, I believe in the fall working peace between these two drivers and they get to measure each other.
This is a very special situation, that perhaps the two fastest drivers in the world, Ogier and Kalle Rovanperä not racing for the World Championship title, but mixing up the pack in individual rallies.
3. Part-time drivers Kalle Rovanperä and Sebastien Ogier are Toyota’s biggest asset in the drivers’ World Cup battle. Reasoning: The two have enough speed to beat Tänak and Neuville. Rovanperä and Ogier can deprive them of a lot of important World Cup points and offer Evans the opportunity to stay with the Hyundai duo in the points situation.
You have to agree with this as well. With quite a pot of gold, they offer Evans a chance if they continue to participate in several rallies and especially bring a lot of brand championship points.
In that case, strong performances are also needed from Evans, because it’s pretty boring to be the so-called number one horse for the whole season, when the stablemates come from time to time to show the place of the locker.
4. Gregoire Munster does not belong to the WRC class. Reason: The last indication of Munster’s level was found in Sardinia. He also repeatedly lost to rally2 drivers. Munster hasn’t shown anything in rallies that, for example, one of the most potential rally2 drivers couldn’t show.
I disagree with that statement. There is no harm in having drivers of Munster’s caliber in the WRC class, as long as they don’t take a place from some so-called from the driver.
Being able to drive in the main series with money, to put it in Finnish, can even make it possible to get one more car for a team. If there were, for example, five or six such “money buddies”, it would perhaps make it possible to drive one car with a really fast driver.
Of course, we can compare it to another species. You can’t get to the Olympic final if you offer a million, get there to throw and not even have the same meter readings. However, it brings color to the rally by getting as many top-class cars as possible to compete, because otherwise there are so few of them.