F1 Fanatic

And I thought motorsport was meant to be finding its feet again with manufacturers!

Petter Solberg has received a suspended ban for speeding. 106km/h in a 50km/h zone. He was apparently overtaking a much slower vehicle. The ban will only come into effect if he exceeds the limit by more than 50% in any of the next 6 WRC rounds.

@keithcollantine Me too. In fact, I had high hopes for the whole WRC. But then BMW dumped Prodrive and the MINI WRC project, Ford was in doubt, the promoter had those problems, etc. I suddendly lost a bit of my interest for WRC this season.

Just read a new article about the MINI project situation, and after all it seems BMW has dumped Prodrive because BMW wants to shift the project to a german company. It seems that at March there will be a new homologation but that can’t happen without the autorization of BMW. Some bad things coming, I think.

Just read on the portuguese Autosport website that the FIA is looking for the Powerstage to be broadcasted with 60 to 90 minutes of additional coverage that includes reviews of the previous days. The FIA also wants 2 helicopters following the cars through the stages at all times, and they want all stages to be filmed in HD and even in 3D.

And they also want to get all the stages broadcasted on the internet, with helicopter images and and onboard footage.

For fans, this would be amazing. But I wonder if Eurosport is going to accept to do it.

Rally Sweden

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

So far things seem pretty exciting. Small time penalty for Loeb has affected the board.but importantly not the leader. Currently Latvala leads with just ’6s over Hirvonen. Ostberg is having a good rally so far. I guess it’s only a matter of time before the ice catches someone out.

Looks like Latvala used his qualifying advantage well, really hope he does well to keep Citroen at bay.

Yea, shame about the folks on the radio. It sounded to me more like a contractual dispute that will only affect Sweden but I’m not so sure, difficult to decipher it from Twitter feeds. Do you have anything better source wise, @turini ?

@keithcollantine just posted up a video if you check out this link http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/groups/world-rally-championship/forum/topic/loeb-loses-two-minutes-with-snow-bank-spin-video/ of Loeb’s difficulty this afternoon.

I’m really impressed with everyone else so far, and Loeb to an extent. He really made short work of his time penalty and the podium would have been his for sure if he hadn’t of stuck his DS3 in the snow.

Going to watch the highlights from today tomorrow morning (bless Virgin Media TiVo) so will be able to take a look the action from today.

Chaos ensues this morning!

Punctures for Latvala and Petter. Ostberg has now taken third and although he was closing on Solberg (last gap was 4.9s) I would rather it turn into a proper battle, still, kudos to Ostberg, he’s had a brilliant rally.

Latvala should be ok, I don’t think there’s enough time for Hirvonen to really capitalise. 8.2s gap at the moment.

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

Well, it’s not much of a spoiler really, Latvala had the rally from day 1.

I really enjoyed the rally, no major retirements. Fair enough Loeb had his issue in the snow-bank on day 2 but he leaped over Henning Solberg and smashed the Power Stage as you would imagine.

I’m glad Ostberg got on the podium and he thoroughly deserved it. He was working hard for it and judging by his SS23 time, he would have glided past Petter Solberg with ease, irrespective of Petter’s puncture.

What are your highlights?

I’ll try get some YouTube videos on here once the highlights have been televised later on.