[AsmViktor]

another year is in the books...so what did you enjoy and what you disliked about this year in the WRC and rallying in General.

H.O.T

1. The new cars did not dissapoint me although i had big doubts.
2. Loebs Legendary Record
3. Ogiers performance
4. Tanak
5. the Power stage format/live coverage
6. Paddon
7. Latvalas pace and attitude towards the sport
8. Loebs 2 year contract
9. the VW announcement
10. The suprising pace of the mini on tarmac
11. Ogiers and Latvalas fight in Jordan


N.O.T

1. Hirvonens performance
2. Latvalas inconsistency
3. The citroen/loeb/Ogier soap opera
4. Solbergs lack of pace towards the end of the season
5. Raikonen
6. Wilsons retarded tactics in the last 4 events slowing down the fastest driver
7. the 5 year disgrace patience
8. M-Sport management
9. the WRC academy survival championship
10. The new cars lack of torque


Overal i would say it was a good season with some good moments and great fights...the new cars brought new excitement and interest....on the scale of 1 to 10 i would give the championship a 7.84623...

[itepearce]

Top marks for thread title!

I think one of the best things to come out of this year was the realisation that there is a good number of extremely talented youngsters who have incredible potential. Abbring, Mikkelsen, Neuville and Tanak have all shown signs of excellent ability and I wouldn't be surprised to see at least 3 of those to retire with at least one WRC title. I think the fact that the WRC now has 4/5 top, top class drivers who can challenge on every event has made this year really exciting. Yes Loeb has been the best, but JML and Ogier have more than matched him on occasion, and Petter has shown excellent pace on and off. Mikko, despite a terrible year, was also near to winning the title so overall a good battle in that top 5. Obviously the Mini and VW news has also been great for the sport, and all that's needed now is confirmation of Ford for 2012 and beyond.

Negatives? The fact that Mikko and Kopecky almost won the WRC and IRC title respectively despite not being the fastest driver - maybe the points sytem needs looking at again? Also the consistent use of blatant team tactics. Fair enough if JML and Mikko were within 10s, swap them round. But for JML to drop 30, 40, 50s just to give Mikko a few points was disappointing to see. Finally seeing VW testing drivers was good, but I feel their choices were baffling at times. Mikkelsen and Hanninen should have got many chances, while Lindroos, Riedeman etc were wastes of a seat.

Overall I'd give the year a 7.84624

[avaiftBoara]

Mini will be hot, as will VW. I am so sick of Citroen and Ford.

[Duaceanceksm]

What was hot? Ogier finally ending loebs ridiculous reign in germany. What was not? Rally sweden, that was not hot, it actually looked rather cold if you ask me....

[OixKKcj1]

What was hot? Ogier finally ending loebs ridiculous reign in germany. What was not? Rally sweden, that was not hot, it actually looked rather cold if you ask me....

A puncture ended his reign.....

[nanyaHgoc]

Sweden was excellent. I suspect Ford gave less indirect support to Ostberg as the season went on, because that podium was amazing. The new cars have been quite good. Enjoyed the arrival of Mini also.

[vaalmerruutel]

Great title

H.O.T

- the new cars, I thought they were going to be slower
- Power stages and Rally Alsace live coverage (and Monte coverage if we talk about IRC also)
- the Fiesta's pace, quite near the DS3, but still...
- Mini BMW
- Latvala's pace
- Ogier's pace
- Hanninen
- new young guns: Ostberg, Tanak, Paddon, Breen, Neuville, Mikkelsen and possibly Kaur, Abbring and Weijs Jr
- Kuipers: quite fast for a gentleman driver, isn't it?

N.O.T

- the Fiesta reliability, at least in the first half of the season
- Hirvonen's pace
- Latvala's inconsistency
- Ogier's inconsistency (but I'll excuse him)
- Meeke, I expected him to be nearer to Sordo, but maybe I was expecting too much
- Novikov, except the last 2 rallies, was slow and did a lot of crashes
- Oliveira, the slowest rally driver I ever seen so far
- Wilks

[Duaceanceksm]

A puncture ended his reign.....

Certainly did, its a long way from the top:-)

Thanks to the ugsquirrel for reminding me about ostberg, he was a hot topic this year!

[harriettvanders]

Good:
- new wrc cars
- power stage
- Mikkelsen, Neuville, Tanak
- VW

Bad:

- road cleaning and related tactics (even worse was Ogier denying them)

- still quite bad coverage for 2011 (only France live, onboards at other vids on WRC page first in the evening etc), powerstages sometimes had issues as well. Could add maps with splits+gps tracking on the web pages (dakar does that)

- how fast the gap between factory and client cars widened (i.e. Solbergs, Østbergs and even PGs pace in the start of the season vs later on)

- pace of the new Mini (don't remember any car in last 10 years which wasn't top 3 fast out of the box and started to win later)

[Darnisg]

Good:
- pace of the new Mini (don't remember any car in last 10 years which wasn't top 3 fast out of the box and started to win later)

How about the Suzuki SX4 WRC and the latest World Rally Cars of Subaru, Mitsubishi, Peugeot, Skoda and Hyundai...

[Haremporblape]

SX4 Huge fail. Focus and 206 had very good debuts. Skoda and Hyundai also a fail. But about the Focus u can say they were always in rallying from Mini-BMW it's really out of the box although Prodrive had the Subaru program 2 years ago still.

[Buincchotourbss]

2011 WRC

HOT:
Hänninen winning SWRC
New cars proved to be both spectacular and fast
Mini's tarmac pace
Citroen's internal tensions, racing not only in stages, some politics involved
Latvala's speed - especially on tarmac
Paddon winning PWRC
Many nice fights in many rallies
Polo R WRC

NOT
Jordan logistical problems
Mikko's lack of speed
Rally Argentina roadbook page 55
Rally Argentina magic rock (moving all by itself to the middle of the road)
Citroen's actions towards Petter
To some extent Rally Finland's route, nice in some aspects but proved to be little too much, time running out on very long liasion sections (from spectator's point of view)
The clear slowing of customer cars after rally Sweden

[WoCTrt0X]

Hot:
New tracking service by NOKIA :-)

[Buincchotourbss]

Hot:
New tracking service by NOKIA :-)

Ah, true, forgot that one!

I wish they could release as a web-version too... Proved to be totally incredible during NORF, my cousin had it on his Nokia, splits were updating extremely fast and the tracking map was also excellent, it brought a totally new aspect to the rally while watching it live. On SS8, two minutes had passed and no sign of Ketomaa. Then looking the map, he was stopped. Thanks to very extensive data networks in Finland, it worked like a dream all the way through the rally. Like a small rally studio in the middle of the forest, accompanied by YLE's rally radio.

[RlUbQU3R]

After quite a few lists already things starts get repeated, but here's my list anyway:

H.O.T.
- VW Polo R WRC - very good to have a serious contender coming into the mix
- Latvala's pace and all the time improving reliabilty. Had it not been for the unfortunate middle third of the season he would've achieved something he would've deserved.
- The next generation finally coming to prove themselves with actual results: Mikkelsen's IRC title, Neuville's two victories in classic rallies and of course Tänak attack! And there is more to come!
- New WRC cars bringing in more interest.
- Hänninen's SWRC title
- Mini's tarmac pace especially in France - hopefully we'll see more in the future
- Joonas Lindroos' getting the VW Fabia seat for Finland. Unfortunately it didn't work out at all.
- Many tights rallies in WRC and IRC.
- IRC Zlín was literally HOT! Nothing beats the atmosphere at "autobusak"!
- Meeting new friendly fans at stages.
- And not to forget this forum and its members - it's informative, active - and annoying - almost like it would be real.

N.O.T.
- Tactics and team orders, too much of them. Whole Hirvonen for the championship was so fundamentally paradoxal that it didn't stop amazing and amusing me, though of course I understood the point. Also, Latvala and Ogier falling to play with tactics in Finland, and Loeb bite them back and won. After that I've appreciated Loeb far more (as opposed to before when Loeb "just was" for me).
- 0,2 seconds in Jordan.
- Overall shadow of doubt for the future of sport that keeps hanging around. Of course it's little the teams (and manufactures) can do in this current economical climate, but I want more. Also it must said that WRC's current media exposure isn't at 2011 standards. At least they should put some power on their website, give us more live picture, tracking systems, etc. Though WRR I like!

There must be more hots and nots, but I can't squeeze out anything more at the moment.

[soonahonsefalh]

HOT:
This topic (credits to you N.O.T. - I might put you off the ignore list soon)
NORF
NORF
NORF
WRC is slowly coming back as a worthy world motorsport serie.
VW in
The new fast youngsters
Live powerstages

N.O.T:
Some tourist drivers
Starting system and tactics

[CaseyFronczek]

H.O.T.
1 - IRC's live coverage of Monte Carlo. I had to watch the cached versions on EuroSport's website, but what a great nine or so hours of broadcasting!
2 - Closest season in a long time; if it takes infighting and team orders to happen I don't think that's a bad thing. Rally's about strategy as well as driving.
3 - MINI. After Prodrive's struggles with the Impreza I didn't have much hope for the Countryman to be any better than Suzuki's foray into the WRC.
3.5 - Sordo's pace with the MINI.
4 - All the attention VW is getting with their plans to enter the WRC. Along with MINI it would be nice to see more competitive makers.
5 - iRally's coverage at WRC and IRC events. Consistent coverage, good previews and I can listen at work the headphones on.
6 - Driver swap rumors. Like wife swapping minus the 'eew' fator.
N.O.T.
1 - Monte Carlo moving back to the WRC. Next year we get a daylight schedule with one or two runs after sundown. At least one is over Turini.
2 - Having an expired passport and not enough time to leave the country to attend an event. And only two local events within 500 miles to drive to.
3 - Complaints about Matt Wilson. They're years old and not clever enough to be worth repeating (other than that one about M Sport's new Finnish talent Matti Vilsainamoinen).
4 - Some flame-baiting by the eponymous poster. All in fun, I guess.

[AsmViktor]

[QUOTE=Gregor-y;984768]H.O.T.

2 - Closest season in a long time; if it takes infighting and team orders to happen I don't think that's a bad thing. Rally's about strategy as well as driving.
[QUOTE]

you were not around in 2009 were you ???

[AsmViktor]

HOT:
This topic (credits to you N.O.T. - I might put you off the ignore list soon)

do not please...

[soonahonsefalh]

Of course not. My mistake.