rally-emag 026 march 2015

Issue 26, March 2015

Mexico

Ireland

interview:tomas weng

Plus: Tank S Rally, Spa Rally & ForMyFriends

Mitsubishi R5+

it’s not just dusty in mexico

Image: Bas Romeny

dani sordo was happy to return to action after his injury

Image: Bas Romeny

his car suffered a bit though

Image: Bas Romeny

another disappointment for latvala in mexico, his season is of to a disastrous start so far

Image: Bas Romeny

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Rally-eMagYour monthly dose of WRC reports, news and of course the best images of the most exciting sport on the planet.

Rally-eMag March 2015 / Contents

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Who made it?

Publisher: Rally-eMag

Words: Steven van Veenendaal, Harry van Veenendaal.

Photography: Bas Romeny, Timo Anis, Andy Crayford

Who helped?

Logo design: Minse Blom

Backcover artwork: Dam Charles

Distribution: Issuu.com

Who we thank!

PR Photography from: Peugeot Sport, Hyundai Mo-torsport, Citroen Racing, FIA ERC, Volkswagen Motorsport, M-Sport.

How to reach us?

Email: [email protected]: www.rally-emag.comFacebook: www.facebook.com/emagrallyTwitter: @emagrallyIssuu: www.issuu.com/rally-emag

ERCcircuit of irelandClash of the titans

Page 32

Interviewtomas wengDeveloping the Mitsubishi R5+

Page 26

WRCRally mexicoLuctor et Emergogier Page 11

shortsTank S and Spa Rally

Page 24

This month

formyfriendsMexico

Page 41

Rally-eMag March 2015 / News

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This month’s wrap up M-Sport joins forces with Stilo

In the period just after Rally Mexico, the organizers of Neste Oil Rally Finland presented their plans for the 2015 edition of the event. “It’s very much based on last year’s route,” says Karl Nuutinen, assistant clerk of the course and member of the route team. If we may believe the drivers, last year’s event was one of the best ever, so why change a lot? However being one of the most famous rallies in the championship season, they had to do something. Nuutinen and his team, like last year, created an event with four days of competitive rallying. Well the first day only has 2.27 kilometres of competition. It is the Harju stage through the streets and a park of host town Jyväskylä.

With the local crowds it’s an immensely popular stage and therefore it fits very well into the idea of bringing the rally closer to the people But the real rally starts on Friday. And Friday is going to be a real rally day indeed. It starts in the servicepark at the Jyväskÿlä Paviljonki in the morning at 07:30. After 15 minutes of service the drivers leave the park only to come back at 19:30. In between they tackle 9 stages over a total distance of nearly 160 kilometres and the only thing they can do tot the car is to change tyres at the tyre fitting

zone during the Himos regroup after the first loop of stages. And what stages! They start with two ‘warm up laps” the 14.5 km’s Pihlajakoski and the 23.4 km’s Päijälä 1 stage. Then they go on to the (in)famous Ouninpohja. This time it will again be tackled in its full length of no less than 34,39 km full speed kilometres. So including the hair razing Yellow House jump and the Kakaristo corner and all the other jumps and flat out corners. Before a short ‘rest’ at Himos regroup the drivers first have to take the revised Himos stage. Then they can fit new tyres and set off again for a new run of the same loop. Compared to this day Saturday will be ‘a walk in the park’ Two loops of four stages separated by a 30 minute servicebreak. The stages are all familiar with one exception the new Horrka stage. Sunday is just a double run of the Myhinpää stage. The second run will be run as the PowerStage.

Fearful Finland Friday If you ask a well-informed rally fan what the Stilo brand stands for, their answer would definitely include ‘helmet manufacturer’. Of course this answer is not wrong, but apart from all kinds of state of the art helmets the young Italian company makes a lot more products for professionals in motorsport. Former rally driver Ludovico Fassitelli and his wife Elena Perini founded the company in 1999 to design and produce a special line of helmets. These helmets soon included all kinds of equipment like integrated speakers and a microphone for the intercom system, as well as air and drinking systems. Fassitelli was a strong believer in

integrating all these options into the shell of a helmet. “Modifications of the helmet by installing third party products could compromise the integrity of the shell.” He claimed. Apparently the WRC community agrees with him as his wife Elena Perini recently announced a partnership with M-Sport. “This partnership with M-Sport makes Stilo the sole helmet and intercoms supplier for the FIA World Rally Championship manufacturer teams and we’re very proud of that.” M-Sport boss agreed: “Our drivers have been testing the equipment and were very happy with it, so we are keen to move forward with the collaboration.

Rally Mexico / Overview

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Based in: Leon

Date: 05/03/15

Number of stages: 21

Shortest stage: Streetstage Guanajuato, 1.01 km

Longest stage: Guanajuatito, 55.82 km

Total stage distance: 395 km

Surface: Gravel

Rally Mexico

Image: Bas Romeny

Rally Mexico / Revieww

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luctor et emergogier

A famous Latin expression is luctor et emergo, very freely translated this means I struggle and come back on top. This very much applies to Sebastien Ogier, he fought a fierce battle, both with his opponents and himself, as he keeps on nagging about having to start to clean the road. But he not only survived but came back to where he usually is: in top position! During this event the Latin saying also applied to Ott Tanak and the complete M-Sport team.

Words: Harry van Veenendaal

Images: Bas Romeny


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Before the start everyone was happy to see Dani Sordo back in his usual Hyundai seat. Inside his Hyundai he, like his two team colleagues will find a revised fuel injection system, which should boost the power of the car especially in the high altitude stages of Mexico. “The paddle shift system,” so says team principal Michel Nandan,” still needs a bit of fine-tuning, but we are confident it will be available in Argentina.” Regular testdriver Kevin Abbring was in Mexico just to do the recce. But after three days he flew back to Germany. “I’m flying back to test the paddle shift,” he told us. Another addition to the WRC field was local hero Benito Guerra. He found a budget and Motorsport Italia rented a car for him at Wevers Sport from the Netherlands and tried to satisfy his local fans and backers. Lorenzo Bertelli only just made it to Argentina as a container holding most of his equipment got delayed.

M-Sport jumped in and lent him some gear until his own stuff arrived at 2:00 AM. The rest of the field was business as usual. Not present in Mexico, though he was on the entry list, is Norwegian Henning Solberg.

Shakedown scare During shakedown Ogier was fastest before Neuville and Meeke. Dani Sordo gave everybody a scare by sliding of the road. Luckily no harm was done to either car or driver. That evening two show stages were on the menu: the very short Guanajuato street stage of just over one kilometre and the Los Mexicano’s stage. Neuville drew first blood and flew through the streets and tunnels of the Unesco heritage town, beating a surprising Lorenzo Bertelli by 0.1 second. On the next stage Ogier set things right again and led the leaderboard before going to sleep.

WRC.COM asked it’s viewers which is the best livery of a manufacturer’s team in 2015. Volkswagen did not win THIS contest. They were on the podium however but M-Sport

beat them in the runner up spot. Winner however with over 50% of the votes became Robert Kubica’s RK World Rallyteam. Hyundai, Jipocar FWRT and Citroën followed them.

Best livery contest


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Things really get started nowLots of drama at the opening morning loop: the biggest scare came from Ott Tänak and Raigo Molder. They didn’t reach the finish of the opening stage but the scary part was that none of the other drivers had seen them beside the road. After a long radio silence the word finally came out the crew was OK. In a fast corner Tanak hit something and the steering broke. With one wheel facing the side of the road and the other in the other direction Tanak could not do anything, and just had to wait until they were stopped. To his big scare he saw the car was going to dive into a lake. “We only had seconds to decide what to do, so we braced ourselves for the impact and prepared for a speedy exit from the car,” analysed Tanak later. Then we were able to swim to safety. Luckily we were shaken but not hurt. Raigo even had collected his notes so we can continue tomorrow.” Judging by the pictures, that was easier said than done.

They were far from the only ones to hit trouble. Mads Østberg had a frustrating run as his gearbox malfunctioned throughout the morning. On the opening stage it caused him to spin when, rather then going into the desired gear, the car went into neutral. As expected

Mads was far from happy and when asked what his plans were for the afternoon loop, his response said it all: “No plans.”

The massive ‘El Chocolate’ stage was up next, presenting the crews with 44 kilometres of dusty roads. Surely some surprises would occur. Oh yes they would. Just 2 K’s into the stage Kris Meeke went off the road ending his charge for a good result and a few kilometres down the road Hayden Paddon suffered a similar fate. Ogier had been the fastest of course, until Robert Kubica entered the stage. The Pole was flying clocking in 5 seconds faster at the first split, then 10 seconds faster on the second but then… his dot stopped moving on the tracking system. Kubica had pushed a bit too hard and went off. It’s a pity as Kubica, throughout the season, is clearly showing he has the pace to compete with the best of them but lacks the consistency to turn that pace into results.The final ‘moment’ of the morning was for Martin Prokop when he encountered a cow on the third stage of the morning. With no way to pass the cow, Prokop had no other choice but to wait until she had decided to abandon the stage again. And this was just the first morning of the rally!

Tanak’s ‘wet and wild’ adventure led to the car being renamed ‘Titanak’, although contrary to its famous counterpart, the Fiesta did emerge.


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The drama act two After all the events of this morning we were all hoping for an afternoon in which the emphasis was on genuine rally battles. Instead, further drama ensued.

The opening stage of the afternoon loop went about normally but then it was back to the now infamous ‘El Chocolate’ stage. Sébastien Ogier was first of the pack again but behind him Thierry Neuville was gaining time throughout the stage, up three seconds at the final split. Neuville looked ready to pound, but it wasn’t to be. A puncture near the end of the stage culminated in an off that ended in a roll. Damage to the radiator meant Neuville was going no further. His Hyundai teammate was in similar trouble when he too picked up a puncture. Fortunately for him, he managed to reach the end of the stage more or less unscaved. Jari-Matti Latvala took advantage of Neuville’s demise and moved into second. Actually, he was doing a lot better than this morning. A chat with an engineer apparently worked some magic as Latvala found his groove again and won the first two stages of the afternoon to close the gap to Ogier to just over 10 seconds. Mads Østberg is still not a very happy man after his gearbox issues this morning, but it seems all the pieces are starting to come together as he took the fastest time on the final proper stage of the afternoon. ‘It must have been a good run.’ With just 26.8 seconds between Østberg

and Ogier the Norwegian is still very much in contention. Local hero Benito Guerra suffered suspension damage and although he made it through the Chocolate stage, he failed to start the next stage.

M-Sport meanwhile was planning some sort of miracle as they sent a crane to the lake where Tanak went off. The idea was to fish the car out of the lake and put it back out on the stages tomorrow. We know the M-Sport boys are some of the best in the bizz, but it would be something else to pull this off.

One by one they all fallThe boys at M-Sport seemed to have worked a miracle by getting Ott Tänak’s car back on the road after yesterday’s dip in the lake. Eight mechanics put in a massive three hours of work, but it wasn’t to be. Tanak managed to leave the service park but en route to the first stage of the day the car came to a halt and would go no further.

Top to bottom:Neuville was flying until a puncture and a roll slowed his progress

After a good talk with his engineer, Latvala found his groove again

The Titanak boys celebrated in style at the finish


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On the first stage of the day Jari-Matti Latvala ran over a rock and because of the impact he thought it had caused a puncture. That wasn’t the case, but it was a sign of worse to come. Just one stage later Latvala went a bit too hard into a fast right hander, hit a bank with the left rear and tore off his rear wheel. Although he managed to limp to the end of the stage, there was no way he could continue. And so once again Sébastien Ogier loses his closest rival. It doesn’t mean that Ogier is just handed the victory. He simply has a better pace than the others and apparently they all have to push just over the limit while Ogier can maintain a margin of safety. Two world crowns don’t just come about out of nowhere and in Mexico, Ogier is showing everyone again just how good he is.

Running under Rally 2 regulations, Thierry

Neuville was given a bit of a fright when he noticed gearbox oil leaking from his Hyundai after the second stage of the day. He managed to nurse it through the live televised ‘El Brinco’ stage and now just has the Leon super special stage to go before reaching the service park again. Both Mads Østberg and Elfyn Evans suffer from Latvala crawling through the stage as his dust trail block their vision. His demise means they both move up a place on the leaderboard though, so they weren’t too concerned about the time loss. Mads Østberg, has been battling all kinds of issues in his Citroën the entire weekend, and there was more to come on the ‘El Brinco’ stage. A mysterious problem with his front right wheel caused the car to move in unexpected ways, resulting in a spin on the very first right hand corner of the stage. The Norwegian lost around 17 seconds but managed to hold on to second,

just under half a minute ahead of Mikkelsen. At the end of the day there were still only six World Rallycars in the top ten.

Business as usualRally Mexico 2015 had consumed all of it’s drama on the first two days, so the final day presented few further surprises. The main battle, for second, between Mads Østberg and Andreas Mikkelsen was decided on the long Guanajuatito stage. Østberg drove a scratch while Mikkelsen spun, effectively ending his chances of catching his fellow Norwegian. It was a well-deserved second place for Østberg after battling through gearbox issues for the second event in a row. Elfyn Evans kept his cool and steadily progressed up the leaderboard to finish an eventual fourth, ahead of Dani Sordo who apparently fully recovered from his injuries.

Despite a bad road position, there was once again no stopping Ogier. For the second time in a row Ostberg was battling gearbox woes. He persevered though to bring home second.


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Round-up

Thierry Neuville is fast, we know that even in an ‘old’ car he can be quick. We wouldn’t say he really got Volkswagen worried but at least he came close. Two stage wins was a good start. Unfortu-nately he went off on Friday and rolled. But Neuville wouldn’t be Neuville if he would leave it to that. So he finished in the points in 8th place, plus the extra satisfaction of a bonus point in the PowerStage where he prevented the VW team from grabbing all bonus points. After Mexico we saw some news about the new i20 being tested by Kevin Abbring and also by Neuville him-self. Let’s hope this new car will bring him that little bit extra to be a real nuisance to the VW boys.

No one really envied Dani Sordo’s task. Mexico may not be the most bumpy rally of them all, but it is definitely not a smooth ride. Broken ribs are not what you want then. But the Spaniard did not complain. He was too eager to start again. Only on

Guanojuatito the fifty plus test on Sunday he suffered some pain, but that was it. An issue with his gearbox cost him some time as did a puncture on Saturday. So couldn’t catch Evans but fifth was a good result and earned him valuable points for both himself as his team. Together with Neuville’s 8th place the team gathered enough points to hold on to second place in the constructor’s standings.

Hayden Paddon Together with Latvala, Meeke and Kubica he was in a group of retirees taking up 15th to 18th place. Paddon being 17th. Not a result to write home about. It was caused by a bank he hit, it broke his suspension and every hope of ending up in a reasonable spot on the leaderboard. But he leatned one thing On WRC+ you can watch onboards of your competitors and they can help you. So we expect him to watch a lot of onboaed footage when at home in New Zealand.

Just another weekend for the Volkswagen team. That means the 27th win for Sébastien Ogier. The Frenchman was in com-mand, putting pressure on his rival until they all faltered. Three out of three now for Ogier (de-spite running first on the Mexi-can gravel stage) means that it remains to be seen if anybody this season can even come close to touching him. Perhaps Ogier should start to realize now that continuing to talk about be-ing first on the road and how bad that is, is not helping. He will win anyway he is simply the best. He continues to prove that by abso-lutely controlling the field!

That does not apply to teammate Jari-Matti Latvala, he is definitely one of the fastest drivers around and was one of the favourites for Mexico, but for some reason or other he doesn’t seem to be able to find enough confidence to turn this speed into victories.

Mexico was not Mikkelsen’s event last year having crashed out twice. This year’s conservative approach brought him his third podium of the season. He only did not like being beaten by his fellow countryman Mads Østberg.

Volkswagen World Rallyteam

Hyundai Shell World Rally Team


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Mads Østberg must have thought all is well that ends well. Being nagged by an unwilling gearbox made him grumpy all weekend, but he also found the key to performing in Mexico: Keep on driving and drive consistently. The others will leave the road and you will score. And that is exactly what happened. He ‘won’ second place including the nice constructor’s points that came with this classification and on top of that he beat his compatriot Mikkelsen. That must have given him some extra satisfaction.

Kris Meeke will not remember el Chocolate as a sweet stage the name implies. He crashed out there and ruined his rally. A sixteenth place was not what he came for, especially not, as it did not bring enough points in the manufacturer’s championship to pass arch-rival M-Sport.

This was M-Sport’s rally, unfortunately not because of their achievements on the twisty and dusty Mexican rally tracks, but more for their excellent ability to rebuild a car that seems to be utterly hopeless. When we saw the car being fished out of the lake water dripping from everywhere, we were not convinced they would make it. But although the Fiesta had been drowned for some ten hours, it had been transported back to servicepark and there eight mechanics frantically started to work on the car. Under strict surveillance of the FIA scrutineers they achieved the impossible and rebuild the car. When three hours later the engine started to roar again, the crowds that, despite the late hours, were still present all applauded. The next day however, the engine was not that enthusiastic anymore. During the 15 minutes pre-start service the mechanics tried to bring the coughing

engine back to live and finally did so, but en route to the next time control the engine stopped again and the brave crew driving the car had to bring it back to service. There the car was put in the sun to further dry and a faulty sensor was replaced. The next morning Tanak and Molder could finish their rally. Getting back behind the wheel was already an achievement but essential to gain confidence again after their predicament.

Elfyn Evans obviously was driving a bit in the shadow, his teammate taking all the attention. But he drove very intelligently in this case that meant staying out of trouble and coping with the particular handling problems on the Mexican stages, for example the ever changing grip levels. While not shining he made it to the end and was rewarded by a fourth place.

M-Sport World Rallyeam

Citroen Total Abu Dhabi WRT


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Benito GuerraBenito Guerra’s car came all the way from Holland, prepared by Wevers Sport and run in Mexico by Motorsport Italia. So he wouldn’t have to worry about the preparation of the car. But being on your home ground is always a challenge. You have to satisfy your fans and (perhaps even more important) your sponsors. The last group promised some more outings if the results were good, so… Unfortuunately he was on the casualty list of Friday. His car had been damaged to such an extent that the anti roll bar could not be refitted, so the handling of the car was not as you would want it. Considering this being 12th in the end was not such a bad result.

Fuckmatie World Rally TeamLorenzo Bertelli was not a happy man in Mexico. His equipment got delayed but at least he was a runner up in the first stage but then things got worse all the time. An off on Friday, then he had to leave the event on Saturday’s second stage and finally he ended on three wheels on Sunday. Three retirements in one rally that must be some kind of record.

Jipocar Czech Rally TeamMartin Prokop can be happy. He is one of the people who kept on saying: “Mexico is not rally to attack…” Well perhaps he would have wanted to attack the cow that was holding him up on a very narrow road. But apart from winning second spot on the Friday’s running of the Léon street stage he kept his head down and survived being sixth over all.

The private Fords

As mentioned earlier Robert Kubica’s car was voted as the best liveried manufacturer team car, that might be nice for his graphic designer but we doubt whether the Pole really cared as he is probably more interested in a good result on the leaderboard. He was doing just that when he was faster than Ogier in the opening splits of Friday’s second stage but then an almost characteristic mistake occurred and he rolled out of the rally. He came back but was to busy to prevent making mistakes. But at least he kept one record alive he won a stage in every rally of this year. This time it was the second run of the Léon street stage where he finished 0.2 seconds faster than rally winner Ogier.

RK World Rally Team

Rally Mexcio / Results

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Overall final classification

1. Ogier-Ingrassia Volkswagen Polo R WRC 4:19:13.42. Østberg-Andersson Citroën DS3 WRC + 1:18.83. Mikkelsen-Fløene Volkswagen Polo R WRC + 1:25.14. Evans-Barritt Ford Fiësta RS WRC + 3:40.25. Sordo-Martí Hyundai i20 WRC + 5:01.86. Prokop-Tomanek Ford Fiësta RS WRC + 6:36.17. Al-Attiyah-Baumel Ford Fiësta RRC + 14:52.78. Neuville-Gilsoul Hyundai i20 WRC + 22:43.39. Fuchs-Mussano Ford Fiësta R5 + 22:49.010. Ketomaa-Lindstrom Ford Fiësta R5 + 23:10.2

2015 FIA WRCManufacturers’ Standings

1. Volkswagen Motorsport 992. Hyundai Motorsport 753. M-Sport WRT 484. Citroën Total Abu Dhabi WRT 425. Jipocar Czech National Team 206. Volkswagen Motorsport II 157. Hyundai Motorsport N 38. FWRT SRL 1

Rally Mexico / Standings

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2015 FIA WRCDrivers’ Standings1. Ogier 81 2. Mikkelsen 473. Neuville 354. Østberg 325. Evans 266. Latvala 197. Sordo 188. Prokop 149. Tanak 12 10. Paddo n 10

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tank s rally Opening round of the Dutch Rally ChampionshipWords and images: Steven van Veenendaal

Rally-eMag / Shorts

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The Dutch rally season kicked off in traditional fashion with the Tank S Rally around the polder town of Emmeloord. Throughout the years the rally has developed its own very typical character with stages running over the dykes that are protecting the lands behind them. It’s always hard to see the road ahead on these stages making for a unique challenge.

New kid in townTalk of the town at the event was one of the opening course cars, the Mitsubishi R5. The Swedish Mpart team used the Tank S Rally to give the car its maiden tarmac test, albeit running out of competition. This meant that the stage times were not published, but team manger Tomas Weng ensured us he was very pleased with the performance of the car on the black stuff for the first time. It looked and sounded every bit the part as well, pleasing the crowd in the progress.

The rallyJasper van den Heuvel was the clear cut favorite ahead of the event, but a last minute entry by Erik Wevers in a full blown Skoda Fabia WRC meant that he had a new and unexpected rival. Two-time Dutch champion Wevers may have

been out of road rallying for two years, he would still pose a formidable threat. In the end, it turned out a bit differently. Piet van Hoof, in his beautiful Mäkinen-look Evo IV, won the first stage of the rally but from then on it was all van den Heuvel, all the way as he won all remaining stages

Wevers admitted that he had been a bit rusty, adding that “I usually need a rally or two or three to get my rhythm back.” Behind the sovereign van den Heuvel, Wevers was locked into battle with Kevin Kooijman for second, who had edged ahead on the countryside stages. On the stages in the industrial sector though, Wevers was able to fully exploit the power of his Fabia WRC and pulled away. A final stage charge by Arjen de Koning nearly toppled Kooijman of the podium entirely, but de Koning fell 0.1 of a second short.

Final result:1. Van den Heuvel – Bakker Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X 58:26,22. Wevers – Poel Skoda Fabia WRC + 1:22,03. Kooijman - van Goor Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X + 1:52,14. De Koning - Verbaeten Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X + 1:52,25. Van Ballegooijen – Findhammer Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X + 2:25,16. Muilwijk - Bleijenberg BMW M3 + 2:41,87. Ploeg - van Koppen BMW 1 Serie Coupe + 2:44,98. Svanholt - Møller Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X + 3:07,19. Faes - van der Rijsen Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX + 3:14,310. Van Leeuwen – Vogelenzang-de Jong Mitsubishi Lancer EVO X + 4:03,7

Rally-eMag / Shorts

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Good yearIt’s a good year for Belgian rally fans as their local championship is packed with top drivers in high-end cars. No WRC’s in are allowed in the Belgian championship (although they are eligible to run in the events) but there is a galore of R5’s, complemented with a couple of Porsches, just for good fun. The biggest name of them all, is that of Freddy Loix. The former WRC driver now spends his day chasing Belgian glory in his Skoda Fabia S2000 and although he has never won in Spa before, he is the man to beat.

ControversyUnfortunately, what could have been a great event, was marred by heavy disputes between drivers and the organizations, resulting in pen-alties and disqualifications. Before the rally had actually started, there were rumors that several drivers had done illegal recceing on one of the stages. During the event the organizers stated that indeed, several drivers, including front runners Snijers and van Woensel had indeed

done illegal recceing and both were slapped with three-minute time penalties. Snijers was furious and called it “the biggest nonsense I have ever heard!” Van Woensel took a slightly more nuanced approach and explained why he had been there “We had our notes for the finish of that stage, but it seemed they had placed a strawbale on the inside of the last corner, so we were just there to see what had changed exactly.” Further controversy ensued when both Verschueren and van Parijs missed a time control between two stages. They were excluded from the event, leading to more very upset drivers, Verschueren: “This is ridiculous, there was a hidden time controle, that is something you use on navigation events, not on proper rallies!”

While all that took place, Freddy Loix just set about his business and attacked the tricky stages. His closest rival is Kris Princen but when he suffers a broken differential on Friday night it becomes a matter of staying on the road for Loix. He succeeds and locks in his first Spa Rally victory.

Spa rallySecond round of the Belgian Rally ChampionshipWords: Steven van Veenendaal, Image: PR

The return of the legend. For once that statement actually holds true. Spa is of course the home of Belgian motorsport as it hosts one the world’s greatest circuits. For many years it also hosted a great rally,

the Boucles de Spa, but due to various reasons that rally disappeared from the calendar a few years ago. This year though, we’re back in Spa, with a brand new rally, fittingly called the Spa Rally.

Final result:1. Loix - Gitsels Skoda Fabia S2000 1:50.36,72. Cherain - Leyh Citroën DS3 R5 +31,83. Princen - Kaspers Peugeot 208T16 R5 +1.00,94. Becx – Smeets Ford Fiesta R5 +7.31,65. Bux - Borguet Peugeot 208 R2 +9.53,56. De Cecco - Peugeot 208 R2 +10.14,87. Dilley - Louka DS3 R3 Max +10.15,78. Albert - Mergny Mitsubishi Lancer E. 9 +10.23,19. Fumal - Hottelet Citroën DS3 R3 Max +12.16,910. Fernemont – Maillien Ford Fiesta R2 +13.02,2

developing the mitsubishi r5+

Tomas Weng

Is:Managing Director

of Mpart

Words: Steven van VeenendaalImages: Steven van Veenendaal, PR

Rally-eMag / Interview

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It has been over a decade since Ralliart ran of-ficial Mitsubishis in the WRC. The brand strug-gled to make the transition from Group A to the WRC era after enjoying considerable success in the mid- to late nineties and disappeared from top flight rallying. Mitsubishi remained a household name in the sport though by domi-nating the production class for the last two dec-ades with its various evolutions of the Lancer. With such a pedigree it should come as no sur-prise that the announcement of a brand new R5 class Mitsubishi was greeted with much ex-citement by fans and drivers alike.

However, the Mirage R5+ is developed by nei-ther Mitsubishi nor Ralliart. The Swedish Mpart company actually started development on the

car by themselves. Without official manufac-turer support, it seems madness to develop a car from scratch, but Tomas Weng thought oth-erwise and started the development of an R5 Mitsubishi, specifically for his Swedish home market. Once word got out though, the inter-est in the car surpassed his expectations and it has now got to the point where he states: “The huge interest we have from all over the world, means that we need to send it outside Sweden.”

With so much rumor and excitement surround-ing the, now shortly approaching, official debut of the Mitsubishi R5+, it is time to catch up with Tomas and find out about more about the car and the project as a whole.

Q: The first question that pops to mind really is, with no official support why did you decide to build the car?A: It’s easy (a lot seems easy in Tomas’ per-spective). We take care of the Mitsubishi and Ralliart parts in Sweden and as such we have a lot of customers with both N and R4 cars. Many of those people have built up their team around the Mitsubishi brand, with their sponsors and loyalty. So of course, for them it is easy to take the next step with Mitsubishi as well. When Mitsubishi withdrew the Lancer from the

WRC that was the last time we had a produc-tion car at that level, so I figured we needed to something. I talked to the federation in Sweden to see if we could make a new, nationally ho-mologated 4WD car. This was all before the R5 class was planned, but as I set about to draft the regulations for the new car, the R5 class was launched and it was almost exactly the same as my ideas so far. So obviously at that point we decided to make it an R5 car.


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Q: That makes sense, it is a very popular class.A: Yes it is, because the regulations for the R5 class were very well written by the FIA.

Q: What do you think is so good about them?A: You need to have a lot of parts that are both standard and can be reused in different areas of the car. So in the end that makes it really easy for teams to handle the spare parts and consequently the running costs will go down.

Q: It might be difficult to get the right parts if you’re not fully backed by the manufacturer. Because in WRC you can produce all kinds of parts yourself but that’s not allowed in R5. Are there enough standard Mitsubishi parts that you can use?A; Yes, we have the Evo X, so it’s easy. There are a lot of good parts there and although we cannot use them all, because we have so much experience with Mitsubishis we know how it all should work. And you know, they are Japanese parts so they are of really high quality.

Q: What kind of Evo X parts are in the car?A: Well most importantly, we use the Evo X engine. Of course it is downsized a bit as it is originally a 2-litre engine.

Q: So how far along is the car now?A: We will do some more gravel testing next week in the UK. We already did the tests on snow, and it was originally my plan to test it on snow a lot, but the car has been working so well from the be-ginning that we are now already here in Holland for a tarmac test. The Tank S rally we will use to create a base set up for tarmac. Of course in the future, we will be testing with different types of drivers, but we need to have a base first to know where we are.


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Q: Did you do any endurance tests already?A: Yes at the same time really. We have run it for one thousand k now, without any problems at all.

Q: And do you are already competitive with the other top R5 cars?A: Of course we will be there, but it is too much to expect that from the beginning. But we had some interesting times for the last test-ing we had on snow. We drove it on the same stages they run in the Swedish championship and that was…. Very interesting.

Q: Compared to an Evo X?A: No the other R5’s, we have Citroëns and Peugeots in Sweden, so…as I say… interesting…

Q: When will you start producing and when will we be able to see the car out on the stages?A:After the UK gravel test rally we will build as many cars as we can. We already need five to be finished by the middle of May. We build as many as we can. And then it depends on the local federations, how quickly they can approve the car for regional rallies.

Q: You need various local homologations, not just an international one?A: Yes, we can only do local homologations. Only the manufacturer themselves can apply for international FIA homologations.

Q: So that would mean we can only see the car on local events, not in the ERC or WRC?A: That’s correct, but the funny thing is that only about 15% of the people interested in buying the car want to use it for international events, for the others a national homologation is just fine. Because they want to run it in the open class in the UK, or open classes in other countries, you know, with 2.0 liter engines, 2.5 liter engines, some even like rallycross supercars, there are a lot of interesting regulations around the world.

Q: But wouldn’t that mean that you would be making a different car for each country? And wouldn’t that be a difficult thing to do?A: No, the car itself is not a problem, that will basically be the same.

The difference is mainly in the engine. But it’s easy, because the 1.6 engine is based on a 2-litre engine, so we can pretty much do any-thing we want with that.

Q; So you are focusing now on local markets, different countries, but nothing related to ERC or WRC?A: From the beginning the car was designed for the Swedish market. Most of the 15 cars we have sold so far are in Sweden. But the huge interest we received from all over the world, makes it clear that we need to send it outside Sweden too. So various countries yes, but international series like ERC and WRC, for now, no.


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Q: And you’re not planning on anything like that?A: It depends on what happens in the future of course. But the plan from the beginning was to make it a national car and in the end, now that it is much bigger than I expected, yes of course it would be fantastic if we can get it approved by the FIA.

Q: But you need Mitsubishi Japan for that?A: Yes of course. We work closely with Mitsubishi Sweden but we knew from the start that Mitsubishi Japan was with-drawing from motorsport. They closed down Ralliart and

their desert rally activities as well. Their focus is on environ-ment friendly cars now. And you know, they made the right decision because the PHEV and hybrid cars are doing really well at the moment. But we will see, for now we will run the R5+ as much as possible in as many countries as possible for national use. Start with that and just make a really good rally car and maybe in the end if we get some good results out of it, who knows?

Q: Ok, that’s clear. Now can you tell a little about the team that you have? Because from our perspective, as a small pri-vate team it should be nearly impossible to compete with the large manufacturers, the Citroens and Peugeots, what kind of team do you have that you are able to do that?A: You need to do it right from the beginning, that’s easy. You need to think about it and of course we are a small company, but I have good people around me, very good engineers. And when we do all the parts ourselves, we have a very short time from production to testing, we can produce it dur-ing the night and put it on the car in the morning to try it out.

Q: Not a lot of paperwork to deal with.A: Yes exactly. So that means even though we have a lot of ideas, we also have quite a lot of time to develop them. We have a simulation program for wind tunnels and parts simulation, so we can simulate all the steel and material, it involves everything. And we can do that all in-house.

Q: That’s quite a lot for a small company, or perhaps it is not so small? How many people do you have in the team? A: We have ten people. Actually, since we have so many orders for the car , before I left yesterday morning we em-ployed two more, so we have twelve now!

Q: Yes because you will need to provide a solid level of ser-vice for your customers. A: Yes of course. From the beginning we should have it un-der control because it is all in Sweden and that’s easy, I take care of the cars anyway. Once we start running it outside Sweden as well though, it will get a become a much bigger project.


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Q: Do you have any plans for that?A: Of course!

Q: Can you tell a little about that?A. No. (laughs)

Q: But you do have rally-related plans?A: Yes, but really this is only the first step. We need to look at the future, what is happening with rallying in five years’ time? We have electrical vehicles, we have hybrids and all those technologies will develop, also in motorsport. So it is really a matter of time before those technologies transfer to the rally stages. And when they do, we need to be there.

Q: In 2017 we have new regulations.A: Yes, and we don’t know what will happen.

Q: There has been a lot of talk of very wild cars, but so far the changes have been relatively small. And we haven’t heard of any plans for running hybrid cars or something similar. A: No because I think there is a big difference between dif-ferent countries. In Sweden we are very much at the top of the environmental stuff, and the discussion around it is everyday. But of course, maybe here it is different and in Africa or South America it is even more different. So it takes more time for those things to be covered in the global FIA regulations, because they have to take the whole world into account, not just Europe.

Q: Now from a rally car, you need performance, do you think full electric cars can deliver the same kind of perfor-mance we now see from the top rally cars?A: Not only electrical power, you can the use the electric engine to help, but you can’t run just on that, it is not pos-sible. Of course in the future it will be, but not now, the tech-nology for the batteries is not there yet. But if we get good power in the batteries it is absolutely no problem at all.

ERC: Circuit of Ireland / Overview

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Based in: Belfast

Date: 03-04/04/2015

Number of stages: 18

Shortest stage: Lisburn 1.12 km

Longest stage: McGaffin’s Corner – 26.05 km

Total stage distance: 215.22 km

Surface: Asphalt

Circuit of ireland

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Round three of the ERC took place at the Circuit of Ireland, one of the oldest rallies in the world. It would turn into a genuine Clash of the Irish Titans.

clash of the titans

Words: Steven van Veenendaal

Images FIA ERC

ERC: Circuit of Ireland / Review


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HistoryThe rally was first run in 1931 and in years past took the competitors all around the island’s coastline, hence the name Circuit of Ireland. Nowadays the format has changed to change the modern ERC standards, making it much more compact. It doesn’t make the event less of a challenge though. The Circuit’s stages are re-nowned as some of the hardest asphalt stages in the world due to their bumpy surface and fast flowing nature. Craig Breen explains: “You fly over the asphalt on these stages. Ok in Finland we do a lot of flying as well, but that’s on gravel, on asphalt…. It’s insane!” Add to that the ever-changing weather circumstances and you get a

cocktail of challenges that only the best can con-quer.

ContendersAhead of the event Craig Breen is labeled as the outright favorite. Last year Esapekka Lappi took the spoils as technical woes prevented Breen from chasing his dream to win his home event. This year however, the Peugeot has a full year of development under its belt and has become considerably more reliable. Breen himself is also developing as a driver and is currently locked in a battle with Kajetan Kajetanowicz for the lead in the ERC. Kajetanowicz is also in Ireland but it will be his first time on the tricky stages and as such

miracles can’t be expected. Robert Consani trad-ed in his aging Peugeot 207 S2000 for a state of the art Citroën DS3 R5. He should be able to challenge the leaders with his new car, but as it’s his first event with the new car it might take some time to get to grips with it. So the road to victory should be an easy one for Breen then? Well no, there are several local heroes around who will do their utmost to prevent Breen’s party. The Moffet brothers in their Fiesta RRC’s and Robert Bar-rable in his R5 version will provide ample resist-ance and given their extensive knowledge of the stages will be difficult to contain.

The Circuit of Ireland has a long tradition as it is one of the oldest rallies in the world The Moffets were out in their Fiesta RRC’s with hopes of challenging the regular ERC front-runners.


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Let’s goTypically Irish challenging weather conditions mark the opening stages. It is basically dry, but the stages are covered with a blanket of fog, at some sections it is so dense that it resembles rain, making the roads both slippery and difficult to see. This does not immediately lead to crash-es up front, but it does make for big differences in the times. Robert Barrables draws fist blood by taking the win on the opening stage. He takes no less than seven seconds from Breen who is hampered by a malfunctioning turbo. The roles are reversed on stage two though as Breen’s issues are resolved and he immediately takes back the time lost.

TroubleThe first of the front runners to hit trouble is Alexey Lukyanuk. Having showed great promise on earlier events the young Russian is tackling

the Circuit for the first time. As if that wasn’t difficult enough, he damages a driveshaft on the second stage. Although he initially feared it would mean an early exit from the event, he per-severed and managed to get through the event. On the second day he impressed many with his solid pace and clawed his way back up the lead-erboard to eventually finish a very respectable sixth. Another Irish debutant is Charles Martin. The Frenchman replaces Kevin Abbring, who left the Peugeot Rally Academy team for Hyun-dai’s World Rally Team this year. Martin takes a cautious approach and although his pace might not have been the most impressive, he does land a solid fifth place overall at then end. Defi-nitely not bad for a debut on the Irish stages.

Gearbox woesRobert Consani got to grips with his new DS3 R5 very quickly. After a rather cautious start to

the event he quickly found his groove in the new car and swiftly moved up to third. At that point though his gearbox starts to protest. One by one his gears disappear until he only has first and second remaining. Not ideal on the mighty fast stages of the Circuit. He wisely decides to call it quits for the day in order to repair the car and gain valuable experience on day two. He re-starts on the second day but it doesn’t take long for the gearbox to deteriorate again. In the end he doesn’t reach the finish. What he does do is impress. Having ran at the second tier of the ERC field in his 207 S2000 many wondered if he had the pace to actually make a challenge up front. In his new machinery though, he proved that with a little more experience of the car and luck with reliability he definitely is a force to be reckoned with.

A new car, a new found pace, but also new issues to contend with. Consani showed speed, but his gearbox prevented a good result.

After a disappointing start, Alexey Lukyanuk worked his way back up the leaderboard to finish an eventual sixth.


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BattleUp front the fight between Breen and Barrable is developing into a clash of titans. There is very little between the two and throughout the event the lead changes no less than five times, with the gaps rare-ly exceeding a couple of seconds. With the pace they are setting it re-ally is a waiting game to see who falters under the pressure first, because when you’re fighting so hard on stages so difficult, surely at some point someone will make a mistake. It takes until three stages from the end for that to happen.

Man downIt’s Robert Barrable who succumbed to the pressure. He misjudged a cor-ner and slid over a crest to end up in a ditch from which there was no escaping. This promotes Breen into the lead and takes away some of the pressure. However while Breen and Barrable were duking it out up front, behind them Kajetanowicz was steadily making strides as well. The Pole proved a quick learner as he managed to keep pace with the boys up front after a couple of stag-es, and after Barrable’s demise he is only twenty seconds off the lead. With three more stages to go, a small mistake or a puncture could destroy Breen’s dreams and hand Kajetanowicz a sensational debut victory.

Narrow escapeOn the penultimate stage Breen commits that mistakes. He goes straight at a square right junction and crashes into a wall. Although he loses his front bumper in the process he is able to continue but the time loss is significant, fifteen seconds. “I thought I had lost it all, my co-driver had to keep me in the race” Breen later admits. Appar-ently co-driver Scott Martin worked some magic because Breen was right on the money again on the fi-nal stage. He beat Kajetanowicz to eventually hold on to a six second lead. It was an emotional victory for Breen “I am completely empty. To win here is the best moment of my career. I have been dreaming of this ever since I was a little boy.”

Until the very end Robert Barrable challenged Craig Breen for victory. Three stages before the end he went off and out of the event though

Barrable’s demise meant a promotion to second for Kajetanowicz. A late scare for Breen almost handed him outright victory.

ERC: Circuit of Ireland / Results

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1. Breen – Martin Peugeot 208 T16 2.04.04,52. Kajetanowicz – Baran Ford Fiesta R5 +6,43. J. Moffet – Rowan Ford Fiesta RRC +1.42,34. S. Moffet – Atkinson Ford Fiesta RRC +2.24,15. Martin – Salva Peugeot 208 T16 +2.41,26. Lukyanuk – Chervonenko Ford Fiesta R5 +4.36,17. Doyle – Hayes Skoda Fabia S2000 +5.23,58. Tarabus – Trunkat Skoda Fabia S2000 +8.29,79. Jeets – Toom Ford Fiesta R5 +8.35,510. Bergkvist – Sjoberg Opel Adam R2 +8.38,3

Final results

ERC: Circuit of Ireland / Standings

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Championship standings

1. Breen Peugeot 208 T16 78 pts2. Kajetanowicz Ford Fiesta R5 75 pts3. Lukyanuk Ford Fiesta R5 43 pts4. Consani Citroën DS3 R5 40 pts5. Plangi Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X 28 pts6. Tarabus Skoda Fabia S2000 26 pts7. J. Moffet Ford Fiesta RRC 24 pts8. Butvilas Subaru Impreza WRX 23 pts9. S. Moffet Ford Fiesta RRC 17 pts10. Svilis Mitsubishi Lancer E. X 15 pts

Rally-eMag / ForMyFriends

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FormyfriendsThe WRC is all action, but there is so much more to see around the rallies. Our photographer Bas Romeny shares his ‘other shots’ with his friends.

Sometimes I attract the wrong people...

The ceremonial start full of enthusiastic spectators.

A ‘low’rider.In the series ‘weird trucks’. Chassis and motor to deliver to the client.

Bertelli’s Ford’s ‘camouflage’colorsworked out quite well here..

Can we imagine a po- lice car pimped up like this in our countries??Aint it super?!

Beetles everywhere (still). Likethis one..

A typical Mexican Fan Family at El Bincko jump. Sponsored by VWE, Ford,Subaru, WRC, Red Bull, Monster, Citroen and Porsche, what else is there?

In the blink of the eye, I spotted an Aztec Utensil, NOT.

Selfie in the local “Starbucks”

see you next time...

rally-emag 026 march 2015

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