Pilots Archives - Hot Rally Blog https://autobathurst1000.com/category/pilots/ All about rally news Fri, 18 Nov 2022 07:47:45 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.1.1 https://autobathurst1000.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/cropped-favicon-1-32x32.png Pilots Archives - Hot Rally Blog https://autobathurst1000.com/category/pilots/ 32 32 Alex Perz caught the best skid on the Ford https://autobathurst1000.com/alex-perz-caught-the-best-skid-on-the-ford/ Mon, 24 Oct 2022 03:10:50 +0000 https://demo.afthemes.com/elegant-magazine/?p=127 Quisque velit nisi, pretium ut lacinia in, elementum id enim. Cras ultricies ligula sed magna dictum porta.

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Mikko Hirvonen this time showed the best controlled skidding of his car. It was spectacular, driving at 110 km/h going into the last corner of this race, Mikko was not afraid to lose control and went into the most dangerous hook of this race, with full control of the situation the driver made the strongest skid in this part without going a meter off the track, it was professional, everyone was thrilled.

Hirvonen has been involved in rallying since 1998, but first demonstrated his abilities in 2002 behind the wheel of a mono-drive racing car, taking first place in the Finnish Formula 2. The same year in Italy, Mikko competed for the Subaru Cup and even took the lead in the series, but unfortunately lost the title in the last stage of the race.

After an unremarkable debut in Monte Carlo, Hirvonen spent the rest of the season flat, without much achievement. This precipitated his move to the Subaru team, with which he spent 2004, a year as quiet as the previous one. In 2005, the driver had to return to racing as a privateer, and by moving into his familiar 2003 Ford, Mikko was finally able to make a good impression, topping the standings at the Acropolis Rally. That performance put him back in the Ford factory team, and a third-place finish at the Spanish Rally guaranteed him a co-driver spot for 2006.

Facts

Hirvonen gave a lot of support to Markus Grönholm and together they were able to achieve a Ford victory in the constructors’ cup. At the same time Mikko got his first WRC win in Australia. In 2007 he had even better results, coming first in Norway, Japan and Great Britain, finishing in the top three ten times all season, as well as giving BP Ford its second team title.

At the end of the year, he finished third in the individual ranking, and in 2008, he replaced Markus Grönholm as the team’s main driver. Mikko Hirvonen is the first driver to achieve this status at such an early age. But he has rightfully taken the spot and had his most successful season to date.
Together with Jari-Matti Latvala, the team’s co-driver, Hirvonen scored three wins and was up against Sébastien Loeb himself until the penultimate stage of the competition.

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Kalle Rovanperää won the Swedish rally https://autobathurst1000.com/kalle-rovanperaa-won-the-swedish-rally/ Wed, 21 Sep 2022 19:45:48 +0000 https://demo.afthemes.com/elegant-magazine/?p=46 The final day of the Rally Sweden, Toyota driver Kalle Rovanperä started and finished as leader: and the Finn managed to win not only because of his speed, but also because of the problems of the pursuers. Rovanperää’s main rival for first place went down in Sunday’s first stage. Elfyn Evans, who was second in […]

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The final day of the Rally Sweden, Toyota driver Kalle Rovanperä started and finished as leader: and the Finn managed to win not only because of his speed, but also because of the problems of the pursuers. Rovanperää’s main rival for first place went down in Sunday’s first stage. Elfyn Evans, who was second in the total protocol, intended to win back the ten-second penalty and catch up with Calle, but the pilot failed to cope with the control and during one of the fast corners ran into a snowdrift.

Evans initially appeared to have withdrawn due to mechanical damage from the incident, but the Welshman later explained that problems with the hybrid powertrain component were to blame. Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville, who was trailing Rovanpera by around 20 seconds all Sunday, took advantage of Evans’ exit into second place. The Belgian couldn’t close the gap to the leader, but his speed was enough to finish ahead of Esapekka Lappi, who was trailing. Lappi himself was four seconds behind Neuville before the last stage, but he couldn’t catch up with his rival.

The other Hyundai driver was much less fortunate than Neuville. Ott Tänak dropped out of the race on Friday: his car had essentially the same thing that happened to Evans’ car, namely a failure of the hybrid component. As a result, the Estonian finished outside the top ten. But nonetheless he managed to win the power stage and get 5 points for it. M-Sport driver Adrien Furmo couldn’t make it to Sunday’s first special because of the problems he had on the road section. Most likely, like on Saturday, it was the loss of engine power. The best of M-Sport was Gus Greensmith, who finished the Rally Sweden in fifth place.

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WRC-2 and WRC-3: something is becoming clearer https://autobathurst1000.com/wrc-2-and-wrc-3-something-is-becoming-clearer/ Tue, 12 Jul 2022 17:35:45 +0000 https://demo.afthemes.com/elegant-magazine/?p=106 Before the Greek round, there was no shortage of different forecasts for the course of events in all the “junior” categories, i.e. WRC-2 Open, WRC-2 Junior, WRC-2 Masters, WRC-3 Open, as well as in WRC-3 Junior (here Acropolis Rally was the final round with coefficient 2). And the recent turbulent events in Greece have already […]

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Before the Greek round, there was no shortage of different forecasts for the course of events in all the “junior” categories, i.e. WRC-2 Open, WRC-2 Junior, WRC-2 Masters, WRC-3 Open, as well as in WRC-3 Junior (here Acropolis Rally was the final round with coefficient 2). And the recent turbulent events in Greece have already clarified something – at least in some categories, the number of title contenders has noticeably decreased… For example, in the WRC-2 Open category, many were wondering how the seventh (and last) scoring round for Andreas Mikkelsen would develop – after all, Greece was the end of the Norwegian’s program in WRC-2, and then it remained only to wait how the next rounds would develop for his main rivals. And Andreas managed to significantly worsen his chances to defend last year’s title – he got into an accident on the prologue, received a 10-minute SupeRally, then heroically fought his way from 33rd to seventh position and won the Power Stage. This allowed him to maintain the lead, but the threat of final defeat has not diminished. He can be knocked out of the first place by two more contenders for the title, the Finn Emil Lindholm, who just won last weekend (he has two more possible starts before the final stage of the season), and the Pole Kajetan Kajetanowicz (he has three starts in reserve, and Kaito has already announced in New Zealand, plus it seems to be planning to perform in Japan).

Meanwhile, two potential contenders for the title in WRC-2 Open were finally eliminated. Firstly, it is the Frenchman Yoan Rossel, who managed to lose the third position because of the “roof” on the final Power Stage and lost all chances for the crown (if he had arrived without incident, he could have become a vice-leader of the championship and a serious threat to Mikkelsen). Secondly, Nikolay Gryazin lost even theoretical chances for the final success – however, the “gesture of goodwill” in Finland, where the Russian crashed his Skoda Fabia Rally2 evo during the shakedown, helped him more. The situation is similar in the WRC-2 Junior, where only two can win the title – Finn Emil Lindholm (he has enough to take 10 points in Catalonia or Japan to become the champion) and Briton Chris Ingram (he has one more start left, but even a victory does not guarantee his overall success). Quite an interesting picture is observed in the “veteran” category of WRC-2 Masters, which unexpectedly turned out to be surprisingly popular – still we have ten crews that have started at least three rounds. The Italian Mauro Miele still retains the leadership here, but the German Armin Kremer is pressing hard on him – he has already won his third victory, moved to the third position and is now preparing for the next round in New Zealand. You can be sure that in all three categories of WRC-2 (Open, Junior, Masters) a lot will be decided in New Zealand and Catalonia – let’s see how the course of events will be.

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