W0RLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP
Rally Mexico - Round 3 of the 2008 FIA World Rally Championship
From the cold of Sweden to the heat of Mexico - The WRC circus has moved to the gravel and altitude of Mexico.
The high-altitude stages should make for spectacular viewing once again as the competitors climb peaks and dip into valley's.
Engines will struggle at this altitude and the teams will see about a 20 per cent drop in power.
The road surface is dry and sandy, but rocks can get on the road, so drivers have to balance high speeds with caution. The rally is based in Leon - which is about 400km north-west of Mexico City.
Day One
SS1 Alfaro 1 - Jari Matti Latvala picks up where he left off on Sweden. Yes the Finn in his BP/Abu Dhabi team Focus is the quickest on the first test - he was 3.0 seconds quicker than Subaru driver Chris Atkinson while Gigi Galli was third fastest a further 4.3 seconds off the pace in the Stobart Focus.
Jari-Matti Latvala said: “I’m quite surprised by the time really,”. “I’m feeling relaxed, and certainly not trying to the maximum.”
Reigning world champ Sebastien Loeb was fourth fastest through the Alfaro stage, 7.4 seconds down on Latvala while Mikko Hirvonen fifth was a further 2.4 seconds behind Loeb. After changing his car’s engine twice on Thursday on the shakedown, Sebastien Loeb said: “It’s a risk to use the old engine but it’s okay for the moment,” he said.
Petter Solberg lay in sixth - 11.4 seconds off the lead, brother Henning was in seventh 2.3 seconds off Petter and PG Andersson rounded off the top eight 18.4 seconds off leader Latvala.
Dani Sordo was nowhere to be seen as the stage finished. The Spaniard had been going well on the split timings and had been as high as fourth overall but 15km into the 22km stage he broke the front left wishbone of the suspension and retired from the rally. The Citroen driver is expected to start under Superally rgulations tomorrow (Saturday).
SS2 Ortega 1 - The French flyer Loeb goes quickest on the second test but is only 1.6 seconds quicker than Italian Gigi Galli.
Rally leader Latvala finishes the test in third place 2.5 seconds off Loeb's pace while Aussie Cris Atkinson in the Impreza is fourth through the stage 3.2 seconds behind Latvala.
Mikko Hirvonen has started steadily and is fifth fastest 5.6 seconds off Loeb, Petter Solberg is 21.3 off the pace while PG Andersson in the Suzuki is 1.7 seconds adrift off Solberg's Impreza.
SS3 El Cubilete 1 - Jari-Matti Latvala continues to hold the lead of Rally Mexico after Friday’s morning loop of three stages.
The 22-year-old Finn took the lead on the first stage of the rally and after the first loop of stages returned to the service area in Leon 4.4 seconds ahead of Citroen’s Sebastien Loeb who has moved into second. Chris Atkinson of the Subaru World Rally Team is well placed in third, 11.2 seconds behind Latvala.
Latvala said: “It’s going okay actually,” he said at the end of SS3. “There have been a couple of moments when I’ve lost my rhythm, but apart from that I’m enjoying myself. It’s a difficult rally though and I’m being very careful, there are a lot of rocks by the side of the road here.”
Gigi Galli's morning was ruined on SS3 when his car slid off the road and stopped with the rear wheels stuck in a ditch. The Italian was lucky as it only took Galli about 90 seconds to get the car moving again. This off cost him as he dropped from fourth to ninth place.
SSS4 Alfaro 2 - A stunning time from Petter Solberg see him take the quickest on SS4, the Norwegian went 3.7 seconds faster than Latvala with Chris Atkinson a further 2.1 seconds off the pace.
The second time through Alfaro saw big drama. Toni Gardemeister and Gigi Galli both retired on this test.
Gardemeister struggled through this mornings stages, his Suzuki SX4 crawled through the stages because of an engine sensor failure, and then finally stopped 8.1km into SS4.
Team-mate P-G Andersson’s car stopped with piston damage, Suzuki has not confirmed whether to rejoin on Saturday as a Superally entry.
Gigi Galli, who had been eighth after SS3, retired just metres into SS4 after sliding wide on a left-hand corner and breaking the right-hand rear suspension of his Ford Focus.The damage was relatively minor and Galli should be back again tomorrow as a Superally entry.
Citroen driver Sebastien Loeb was only fourth 6.3 seconds off the lead while Mikko Hirvonen was struggling with his start order and finished the test 2.1 seconds behind Loeb.
British hope Matthew Wilson had a solid time - seventh quickest and was up to sixth overall.
SS5 Ortega 2 - The flying Finn has done it again - Latvala has gone quickest again, he goes 2.3 seconds ahead of Sebastien Loeb. Chris Atkinson was 2.7 seconds adrift of Latvala while Petter Solberg was fourth quickest on this test a further 6.6 seconds off the pace.
Brother Henning was only 0.3 seconds behind the Subaru driver, while British hopeful Matthew Wilson was in sixth 31.6 seconds behind Latvala.
Jari Matti Latvala leads the event from Sebastien Loeb by 9.3 seconds while Chris Atkinson is nicely placed in third overall a further 6.7 seconds adrift.
SS6 El Cubilete 2 - Latvala does it again, he goes 1.9 seconds quicker Loeb while Atkinson came home in third 2.3 seconds down on Latvala.
Stobart driver, Henning Solberg came in fourth on the second test through El Cubilete 4.2 seconds off Latvala's pace while Mikko Hirvonen was a further 1.1 seconds off the pace.
SS7 Superspecial 1 - Norwgian star Petter Solberg went quickest in his Subaru Impreza, he went 0.6 seconds ahead of Loeb while Villagra was third quickest as he was only 1.1 seconds behind Solberg.
Chris Atkinson was fourth 1.1 seconds down on team-mate Petter while rally leader Latvala was fifth quickest 1.9 seconds off the pace and team-mate Mikko Hirvonen was seventh 0.3 seconds adrift of Latvala.
The final stage of the day saw Sebastien Loeb go quickest to cut Latvala's lead. He went 0.3 quicker than Henning Solberg, Petter Solberg, Jari Matti Latvala, Villagra was o.4 slower than Loeb while Matthew Wilson was only 0.6 of a second off the Frenchman.
Day Two
Citroen factory team driver Dani Sordo has restarted Rally Mexico under the Superally regulations.
Sordo and co-driver Marc Marti retired when they hit a rock and broke a suspension wishbone on SS1, the rally opening 22km Alfaro test.
SS9 Ibarrilla 1 - Jari-Matti Latvala’s lead was drastically reduced on the first stage of day two after a blistering time from stage winner Sebastien Loeb. Latvala began day two 9.6sec ahead of the Frenchman, but Loeb cut the gap to 0.5 seconds.
Mikko Hirvonen set the third fastest time and closed the gap on Petter Solberg’s fourth place to 3.4sec.
SS10 Duarte 1 - Reigning world champion Sebastien Loeb set another fastest time on SS10 and moved into the lead of Rally Mexico by 4.6 seconds.
Latvala was only third fastest which meant the young Finn dropped to second overall.
Subaru's Petter Solberg also had a bad stage - he dropped from fourth to seventh because of a transmission problem.
IMN has learnt that Petter attempted roadside repairs but had to retire.
SS11 Derramadero 1 - Dani Sordo was quickest on the stage but it was Loeb who made more gains. The Frenchman took more time out of Latvala and came into service with a 5.8 second lead. Loeb said: “It’s been better today but why exactly I do not know,” he said. “We changed the setting a bit on the car to try and find a bit more grip but Jari-Matti is cleaning the road so I think he lost some time with that. How much he lost I don’t know, we’ll find out this afternoon when we’re all in the same conditions. But it’s still really close. At the moment we’ll just try to push as hard as possible and take as much lead as possible and we will see tomorrow. I want to finish first today, but especially tomorrow.”
Aussie Chris Atkinson was having a great rally and lay in third overall.
SS12 Ibarrilla 2 - The big news coming out of stage 12 was Mikko Hirvonen lost almost three minutes as he hit a rock near the start of the stage.
Henning Solberg made big gains as he moved up into fourth place, while Hirvonen dropped to fifth.
SS13 Duarte 2 - More problems for the Ford/Abu Dhabi team on SS13 - Second placed Jari Matti Latvala dropped around one minute with an engine problem - Ford has told IMN that it was related to a turbo-charger. This problem dropped Latvala top third promoting Subaru driver Atkinson to second overall 1m6 seconds adrift of Loeb.
SS14 Derramadero 2 - The flying Frenchman is back!
Reigning champ Loeb now leads the Rally of Mexico by over a minute from Chris Atkinson. “Now it’s easier,” said Loeb after SS14. “We were pushing hard until we had a good lead on Jari-Matti, but now we have a good lead over Atkinson, and it’s a bit more comfortable. From now on we just have to finish - and finish first. There’s still a long way to go, but if it ends like this it will be the perfect rally.”
SS15 Superspecial 3 and SS16 Superspecial 4 - As the end of day two comes to an end Loeb leads the rally from Chris Atkinson by over a minute. It has been a bad day for the Ford works team as both Latvala and Hirvonen had problems. Latvala is in third overall while Henning Solberg lies in fourth with Mikko Hirvonen is now in fifth.
Day Three
SS17 Leon - Latvala took the stage win while Petter Solberg came in second with Mikko Hirvonen in third. Rally leader Sebastien Loeb was finished the stage sixth but stayed in the overall lead with a commanding gap of over one minute over Subaru driver Chris Atkinson.
SS18 Guanajuatito - Cancelled. SS18 was cancelled on safety grounds because of the large number of spectators.
SS19 Comanjilla - Citroen's driver Sebastien Loeb has had a good day and continues to lead the Rally of Mexico. The Frenchman had a trouble free day and said: “I feel very good now there’s just the Superspecial to go,” he said. “The distance today was always going to be short, but the cancellation meant I could take it a little easier.”
There was no change in second or third as Chris Atkinson remained in second and Jari Matti Latvala stayed in third.
The Ford works team had better news at the end of SS19 as the charging Mikko Hirvonen had taken fourth overall from Henning Solberg as the Norwegian crossed the line with a right-hand front puncture on his Munchi’s team Ford Focus.
SS20 Superspecial 5 - Dani Sordo took the final stage win but top step of the podium went to Sebastien Loeb and the Citroen Total World Rally Team. The defending world champ completed Sunday’s final stage with a lead of over 1m ahead of SWRT driver Chris Atkinson, Jari-Matti Latvala of the BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team finished third.
*Final Standings
| 1 Sebastien Loeb | Citroen C4 | 3h33m29.9s |
| 2 Chris Atkinson | Subaru Impreza | +1m06.1s |
| 3 Jari Matti Latvala | Ford Focus RS WRC | +1m39.7s |
| 4 Mikko Hirvonen | Ford Focus RS WRC | +3m38.7s |
| 5 Henning Solberg | Ford Focus RS WRC | +4m57.9s |
| 6 Matthew Wilson | Ford Focus RS WRC | +6m28.9s |
| 7 Federico Villagra | Ford Focus RS WRC | +19m03.0s |
| 8 Ricardo Trivino | Peugeot 206 WRC | +21m17.3s |
*Driver's standings after Rally Mexico
| 1 Mikko Hirvonen | 21pts |
| 2 Sebastien Loeb | 20pts |
| 3 Jari Matti Latvala | 16pts |
| 4 Chris Atkinson | 14pts |
| 5 Gigi Galli | 9pts |
| 6 Petter Solberg | 9pts |
| 7 Francois Duval | 5pts |
| 8 Henning Solberg | 4pts |
*Maufacturer's standings after Rally Mexico
| 1 BP Ford Abu Dhabi | 37pts |
| 2 Citroen Total | 25pts |
| = Subaru WRT | 25pts |
| 4 Stobart VK M-Sport | 19pts |
| 5 Munchi's Ford | 6pts |
| 6 Suzuki WRT | 5pts |
*All results subject to FIA approval
Thanks to Subaru, Ford, Suzuki and Citroen World Rally Teams for the use of images
Simon McBride
