rally-emag 032 october 2015

Issue 32, October 2015

Corsica

spain

the game

Plus: ERC Rally Greece and The Dutchies

the handsome won!

corsica is back on the menu this year

Image: Bas Romeny

latvala is on a mission to win the final three rallies this year

Image: Bas Romeny

rim rocking action on the spanish gravel!

Image: Bas Romeny

this is going to hurt our photographer...

Image: Bas Romeny

Rally-eMag October 2015 / Contents

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Who made it?

Publisher: Rally-eMag

Words: Steven van Veenendaal, Harry van Veenendaal.

Photography: Bas Romeny, Erik van ‘t Land

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, Red Bull Media Pool.

How to reach us?

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

WRCRallyracc catalunyaThe Handsome Won

Page 26

Featurewrc5 The gameUnleash the driver

Page 38

WRCTour de CorseCorsica Revival? Page 11

ERCAcropolis rallyThe Big Leap

Page 42

This month

fmffor my friendsBas’ special snaps

Page 48

Tour de Corse / Overview

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Based in: Corte

Date: 01-04/10/15

Number of stages: 9

Shortest stage: Bisinao-Agosta Plage, 16.74 km

Longest stage: Muracciola-Col de Sorba, 48.46 km

Total stage distance: 333 km

Surface: Asphalt

Tour de corse

Image: Bas Romeny

Tour de Corse / Review

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corsica revival?

A year ago we witnessed the last issue of the Rallye de France in the Alsace region. Among others things it had one of the best (if not the) best service arena of all WRC events. Though there was a bit of criticism about the stages being similar to Germany’s stages, af-ter a few events, France became one of the more popular events in the championship. Then the re-gional authorities decided it was all becoming too expensive and pulled the plug. No more Rallye de France then? Of course the French sporting authority FFSA did not let that happen. Corsica was reborn. In the beginning of October the WRC community therefore landed on Napoleon’s island.

Words: Harry van Veenendaal

Images: Bas Romeny


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History reinstatedThe ‘Tour de Corse’ has always been an epic event and part of the WRC for a long time. How-ever due to several reasons the rally fell from the WRC calendar in 2008. After a relatively large number of fatal incidents the rally already had become less popular with drivers. But also eco-nomical issues and the fact that a certain Sébast-ien Loeb was born in the Alsace region threw Corsica from the notorious list of 13 WRC events. But now it is back. The most special aspect of the rally this year was the format. Rather than having a central Rally HQ including the service park, it was a true round-trip again. Starting in the capi-tal Ajaccio and then going to the north, to Corte

in the Centre followed by Porto Vecchio in the south. From this point you can almost touch the other Mediterranean WRC island Sardinia. From Porto Vecchio the drivers went back to Ajaccio. Meaning the drivers had to change hotels quite a few times. Not a popular phenomenon with the team owners as this meant they had to pay more than usual.

The scheduleThe special route also included a special time schedule. Three days with three stages each, the shortest one being the PowerStage of just under 17 kilometers. There are four stages of more than 40 kilometers. So with an average stage length of 37 kilometers, it’s not a sprint rally.

So all in all, it is still an exciting rally. The Cor-sican asphalt is one of a kind. Or perhaps we should say seven of a kind. It ranges from race-track like tarmac to bumpy narrow roads with a surface that has been repaired (too) many times because of ‘frostbite’ that hits the roads during severe winters. Rock faces on one side and very deep drops on the other side of the road line the roads. Sometimes there is some rusted armco barriers but usually nothing prevents you from dropping a fearsome distance if you happen to miss a corner... No child’s stuff this rally! But it is sacred rallying history.

The Tour de Corse is a genuine ‘Tour’ of Corsica as it takes competitors all across the island. Beautiful scenery is guaranteed.


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Rain Just before the rally and also during day one, the weather was atrocious. Torrential rains swept all over the is-land. Sending mud streams over all the roads and sometimes flooding complete cities and this at a breath-taking speed. Ask for example Molly Taylor doing gravel crew duties for Kevin Abbring. Together with Kevin’s father she got stuck in a small town. Well actually she did not get stuck. But the car she was in, suddenly was in the middle of a fast flowing river that only minutes before was the main street of the village. Both occupants made it to drier areas unscaved but it’s clear this doesn’t make it easy on the rally organizers. This became clear the first rally day. Rain was pouring down, not only from the sky, because the rain falling down on higher altitudes formed impromptu rivers running down the slopes and on the way ruining the roads by flush-ing away the sand foundations under the tarmac creating holes in the road. Apart from the very slippery nature of the roadsurface this made it near impossible to drive over some of the roads. Consequently the 43-kilometer Casamozza to Ponte Leccia test had to be canceled as some parts of the stage had simply been flushed away.

Evans’ dayMost drivers took a precautious ap-proach. Still, before the first drivers had reached the finish of stage 1, the first retirement could be recorded: Thierry Neuville went a bit wide on a bridge and slammed into a wall lining the bridge. He stumbled a bit further, only to find out some meters further down the road that something had broken in his suspension, something irreparable at a lay by on the side of the stage. On the end-of-stage lead-erboard we found a mix of ‘the usual suspects’ and some surprises. Ty-ing as stage fastest were Kubica and Ogier. The first one we know is fast but it still was a surprise to us, the second of course was not, nor were Latvala, Sordo and Østberg. In sixth place we found Elfyn Evans as the first M-Sport driver. In seventh a sur-prise again: Kevin Abbring. “I have a good feeling with the car,” he smiled at stage end.

Top: Thierry Neuville is continuing his dif-ficult season as the first retirement of the rally. Just over a kilometer into the first stage he smashes into a bridge and rips off his right rear wheel.

Bottom: Meanwhile Elfyn Evans is the star of the opening stages. The young Welsh-man destroys his opposition on stage three to take the lead.

Stage 2 was canceled, so we pro-ceed directly to the final stage of the day. At the end of this stage everyone is rechecking the time sheets, the top four consisting of Evans, Abbring, Sarrazin and Bouffier. It is Evan’s first scratch and Abbring’s second place also is a premiere for the Dutchman. Both Frenchmen on three and four have a thorough knowledge of the Corsican stages so there placing doesn’t come as a big surprise. First and second place however is the talk of the day, as is Ogier’s 87th time! He encountered a slow puncture and de-cided to stop and change the wheel, which cost him over one and a half minute. At he end of the day he was even forced to retire after an issue with his gearbox. As a result he will have to restart tomorrow under Rally 2 regulations. But as we said the top two of this first day was no less than a miracle. Evans and Abbring!

Fight backEveryone is now used to the circum-stances and the weather also had changed back to normal autumnal conditions in this part of the world. But though the roads started to dry up quite rapidly they were far away from being nice and dry tarmac, so the conditions were still tricky. The first stage of today was canceled. This was the same test that had been canceled yesterday, necessary road repairs made it impossible to run the stage. Latvala made clear he was se-rious about his wishes to win the last three events of the season. At the end of the two remaining stages he was leading the rally. Elfyn Evans did a good job but did not want to jeopard-ize his good position and ended up in second, just two seconds behind Latvala. Kevin Abbring had some bad luck. He opted for full hard compound tires. “But,” as he said. “In the be-ginning of the stage it was still quite wet and when the road became drier we couldn’t make full use of our tires because we had a slow puncture, so we lost some time. But it’s only our second rally on tarmac in a World Ral-lycar so I’m happy we are still in fifth position and we will definitely try to hang on to that.” Andreas Mikkelsen and Kris Meeke made up third and fourth at the end of the day.

Top: Kevin Abbring joined Elfyn Evans as one of the surprises of the rally. On that very difficult third stage he too shocks the opposition to move into second overall, a feat no Dutchman has ever accomplished before.

Bottom: Despite the tricky conditions and the sensational performances by Evans and Abbring, at the end of the second day, it is (of course) a Volkswagen leading the way. After Ogier’s demise, Latvala steps up to the challenge and into first.


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Evans resistsFor M-Sport driver Elfyn Evans, the final Sunday is all about defending his position. And although Mikkelsen and Meeke do their utmost to attack this position they don’t succeed. The gap closes to just under four seconds but still in favor of the young Britt. Kevin Abbring does not make it to the end. At the second stage of the day he slides off the road. “Last night I made a change to my notes after looking at the on-boards. Don’t ask me why,” he confides. “But I did. One corner I

changed into fast, but when I came to the corner it proved to be wrong. I went off without much damage but we could not get back on the road and had to retire. A great pity of course, but still we bring back a lot of extra knowledge after this Corsica run. I will now focus on Wales, my next outing with the team.” So Latvala won his second Rally de France in a row, although his last victory in France was in an entirely different location. El-fyn Evans was the wedge between two VW driv-ers. Latvala and Mikkelsen. And Ogier? He won

the PowerStage before Kubica and Latvala.

The constructor’s championshipOf course the champion is Volkswagen, they have more than double the amount of points than runner up Citroën who retook the lead from Hyundai who now is one point behind again. But M-Sport is still within striking distance of second place at the end of the season. So there will be plenty of fights for this position in the last two events of the year.

In the end he didn’t get the result he was hoping for, but there was still plenty to smile about for Kevin Abbring.

On his mission to win the final three events of the season, Latvala takes a good first step, Corsica is his.

Tour de Corse / Round-up

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Round-up

Will Corsica be here to stay?Immediately after the finish of the Rallye de France, the discussion about it’s inclusion on the WRC calendar restarted. During the event the discussion was a bit silent as eve-ryone agreed that the organizers had been extremely unfortunate with the weather. Not only stages had to be canceled but also the servicepark was one big mud bath. Not something you want for your valued guests. For the guests that made it to Corsica that is, as traveling to the island is not the easiest thing to do and let’s not talk about reaching the stages once you’re on the island. Corsica simply doesn’t work well from a commercial point of view that wants to bring the rallies to the people. From a sporting point of view there is not much discussion. Most drivers were happy with the challenge the French island provided. In the modern WRC however there are more things to consider. All things considered we think Corsica does not tick enough boxes. And the same goes for the other Mediterranean island rally. The one you can literally see from some of the stages in Corsica: Sardinia. Though the sporting chal-lenge is completely different there, the geo-graphical position for a global championship is a bit strange. A final decision has not been taken yet as the championship now includes 14 events in the proposed 2016 calendar, despite the fact that most stakeholders don’t want a 14 round championship. The teams, the promoter, the media are all opposed to 14 events, due to one very simple reason: mon-

ey. The championship in its current position simply can’t afford 14 rounds. So we seriously doubt there will be such a 14 round champi-onship, then again, that is the calendar is at currently stands.

So what now?Three rallies are still undecided: China, Cor-sica and Monte Carlo. As far as China is con-cerned there is the issue of safety. The event run there in August wasn’t flawless. Motor-bikes on a live stage are not something you want in a WRC event! However the Chinese are known to be capable of achieving quite a few things in relatively short times if they feel the need to do so. And then there is the is-sue of the two other events. It seems the is-sue of a French event is again the problem. The French motorsport authority FFSA doesn’t recognize the ‘Monte’ to be a French event because even though all stages are run on French soil, the organizer has its premises in a different country. So the event is not French, they claim. Oh and the event is called Rally Monte Carlo orcourse, not Rallye de France, that probably doesn’t help either. The promot-er has a problem here as France is one of the biggest car markets in Europe and according to their policies there should be an event in all of the five biggest car market countries in Europe (Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. The number of (expensive and exclu-sive) cars per head of the population may be bigger in Monaco than in the other countries,

but the absolute number of cars sold there is no comparison to the other countries. So should we go to Corsica then? We don’t feel that way. It is not a secret that we are not the only ones that think that in general there is more appeal to Monte Carlo than to Corsica. Though Corsica has beautiful landscapes providing excellent scenery for rally video’s, in this case we prefer the history and gran-deur of Monte Carlo and of course we do have the French Alps there too. Also, a rally on mainland France is far more accessible for fans from all across Europe, just look at the crowds in Germany and the Alsace..

So what is the problem?Officially it says that there is no signed agree-ment yet between the promoter and these two events. But it’s no secret that Monte Carlo is quite eager to have its rally in the champion-ship. Originally the rally was invented to bring some extra people to the area, outside the tra-ditional holiday season. This still is the case. Monte Carlo and Monaco are mythic ‘brands’ and the authorities fully understand that hav-ing a WRC event adds up to the mythic status and looking at the inauguration of this year’s season on Mont Carlo’s Casino square, the ACM will not easily drop the rally from its own calendar. This doesn’t look to good for Cor-sica, but we will have to wait until the end of November to be sure. In the meantime we at Rally-eMag did book a hotel in Gap to be there for the start of the 2016 season.


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The Volkswagen team can relax. The constructor’s championship is in the bag, and so is the driver’s championship. Sec-ond is also secure, it can be Latvala or Mikkelsen. Østberg can still reach the final step on the championship podium, but Mikkelsen has a comfortable gap to his fellow countryman. So the focus for the team is for Mikkelsen to finish as high as possible but in any case ahead of Østberg. Mission accomplished! Lat-vala won and strengthened his position ad Mikkelsen did the same by finishing before Østberg (6th)

For Sébastien Ogier however it was not the result he wanted. First he made a rare mistake causing a tire to deflate slowly. But after the stage, going to Corte for the final service of the first day he came to a full stop when his gearbox got stuck. The team had to come to help him to come back to service. So he officially re-tired for the day and had to Rally 2 the

next day. The 10-minute penalty and the 1.5-min-ute gap he already had, made it impossible for him to salvage his clas-sification. But though he did not need the bonus points he made clear who is both the reigning and this year’s champion by winning the PowerStage.

For Jari-Matti Latvala there is only one thing that can save his season and

that is winning as many rallies as pos-sible. Or, as he told us before Corsica, “I want to win all three remaining rallies.” He was helped a bit by Ogier’s problems but he ran a strong rally. He started cau-tiously on the first day, but on day two he passed Elfyn Evans by almost grabbing him on the first stage and finally finishing before the Welshman. He then ‘cruised to victory. The First Finn in over thirty years to win the event, the last one being Mark-ku Alén in 1983 and 1984.

Andreas Mikkelsen also can be happy with his achievement here. He is driving very solidly this year and he set a per-sonal record by being on the podium for the seventh time in eleven rallies. Initially he opened the hunt for second place, but Evans retaliated and kept the gap open. But as we said earlier he can still grab Latvala in the championship!

M-Sport World Rally TeamVolkswagen MotorsportMalcolm Wilson was smiling all over. Before the Corsican excursion he said he hoped his drivers would be able to spring a surprise or two. At least Elfyn Evans did exactly or even more than what he had hoped for. At the end of day one his protégé was leading the event. The fact his other driver wasn’t feel-ing that good did not change his smile, the fact that Evan’s final result made an end of year runner up position in the constructor’s title still possible of course helped the smile a bit.

For Elfyn Evans Corsica was very important. His Australia result had been far from con-fidence boosting. So his day one results were very wel-come to the young Welsh-man. The rest of the rally he very strongly defended his initial result, and only Latva-

la on a charge was able to break this defence. Mikkels-en tried to, but Evans kept his pace and made clear who was the faster driver here. His second place was a career’s best so there is only one step to go for over-all victory. His Corsican re-sult certainly strengthened his position in the M-Sport team.

Though Ott Tänak’s position in the team doesn’t seem to be in peril his Corsican re-sult definitely was not a con-fidence booster. He never felt at ease and reducing his speed did not help. He did finish in the points but that is all that can be said about his adventure in France. “This is definitely the worst rally we’ve ever done,” was all Tanak had to say at the end of the rally.

It was a hectic weekend for Hyundai. It all began very early in the first stage. Neuville crashed out. But the next stage it all changed, Kevin Abbring surprised friend and foo by driving the second fast-est time behind Elfyn Evans. “Kevin Abbring impresses for Hyundai Motorsport,” the team’s press release said. At the end of the rally the tone is a bit more subdued: Top-five finish after dramatic final day. This fifth place was for Hayden Paddon who was in the N team, so that did not help in the pursuit for the runner up position of the main team. Dani Sordo did grab some points but both Citroën driv-ers were in front of him, so, if only by one point, Citroën passed them again.

For Thierry Neuville disaster seems to con-tinue. He did not make it through stage 1 and when he restarted under Rally2 regula-tions there was nothing much he could do. He is professional enough to find a positive quote: “I have had a better feeling today and enjoyed the three stages we’ve run…” But later in the day he admitted it was a horrible rally. “But I’ll be back stronger in Spain,” he added. His team management is not to certain about his actual form. Not long after the rally they announce that Hayden Paddon will drive for the A team in Wales. Neuville will be joining Kevin Abbring in the N team. “This will give him the chance to drive without the pressure of having to perform well in our battle for the runner up position in the constructor’s championship,” is the official statement of the team. “However there is no discussion about his contract for next year,” they quickly add.

Dani Sordo wasn’t lucky in his drive in Corsica. He was pretty fast and challenging the top drivers apart from the second stage where he broke a wheel, dropping out of the top ten. He kept on fighting and came back to seventh. Not a place he was happy with but still it earned the team some welcome points.

For Hayden Paddon, Corsica started as another step on his learning curve as he doesn’t have much tarmac experience yet. But after the finish he could be happy. “We’ve made a good improvement in our tarmac driving technique this weekend.” This improvement led to a fifth place, again the best Hyundai driver. Some time after Corsica, it became clear that Hyundai team management has a lot of confi-dence in their New Zealand employee as they presented him with a three-year contract with the Korean outfit.

Kevin Abbring surprised everyone by being second on the leaderboard after day one in only his fourth event in World Rallycar and his second on tarmac. Last year Abbring was third (and best R5) on the island, then still a quali-fying round in the ERC, so he did have some knowledge of the tricky Corsican roads. At sev-eral occasions though he explained an R5 car can hardly be compared with a fully-fledged WRC. This meant the previous experience was not crucial. But in Germany he did get some experience with the car on tarmac. “On Cor-sica I made good use of this experience,” the

young Dutchman said. On the second day he was slowed down a bit by a slow puncture but managed to stay in contention and fin-ished the day in fifth. On the last day he started well by outpacing Mads Østberg, then charging to overtake the Dutchman. But on the next stage things went wrong and he went off. The night before after having seen the on-boards he changed a note, but reaching that point on the stage this change proved to be wrong. “Don’t ask me why I changed the note, I don’t know, but it was clearly a mistake,” was his disappointed remark. But it is clear he made himself noticed, being fifth before going off on the last day still is a good result for a novice in WRC. Abbring recognized the importance of this when we made his last remarks about this Rallye de France. “The feeling of not finishing after such an amazing rally is tough but knowing we were able to drive for a top 5 result in a rally like ‘Tour the Corse’ is very encouraging, but there is still a lot of work to do.”

Hyundai Shell World Rally Team


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Citroen Total Abu Dhabi WRT

For Citroën there is only one goal left for this season: finishing second in the constructor’s championship. But both Hyundai and M-Sport have the same goal and they all can reach it. So for Citroën this was a reasonable rally. They passed Hyundai again if only by one point and M-Sport is only 14 points behind Citroën!

In the pursuit of second place Kris Meeke is a vital commodity. He came to the island to re-gain the runner up position from Hyundai. But he soon found out Corsica is a tricky event. Al-ready on the first stage he saw Neuville against a bridge wall. But he kept his head together and made it to the finish. A solid performance brought him to fourth place, so with the help of Østberg his (and Citroën’s) primary goal had been reached. Meeke did a good job but he is never happy if he doesn’t win. He was con-vinced he could have been faster but he also knew the risk of that. He chose the ‘safe’ ap-proach ‘cruised’ to the finish and cashed the points for his employer. Looking at his chances for a next year seat this is of course the sen-sible approach but sportsman Meeke feels it differently.

Before the start it was still a bit uncertain if Mads Østberg could start, but eventually he was given the OK sign to start. He did not feel com-pletely at ease though. His feeling during the stages said: “that wasn’t too bad.” The timesheet however told a different story. Small changes in the setup did not help so in the end he drove his own speed and ended up sixth. Of course these were valuable points to the construc-tor’s championship. But still it was a pity he lost a place to Hyundai N team driver Hayden Paddon. He doesn’t belong to the Hyundai ‘A’ team that is challenging Citroën for the runner up position but still it was a Hyundai that was faster…

The new kid on the block is Stéphane Lefebvre, who earned his Cor-sica drive because of his unexpected good result in Germany. Looking at the weather it was understandable he did not start into maximum attack mode. Getting experience was the main item on his menu. The very bad weather in a way was a bonus. You get the chance too often to get experience in this kind of circumstances. At the end of the rally he was heading for a 10th place when he spun in the PowerStage and dropped out of the points section to eleventh.

RK World Rallyteam Robert Kubica feels more comfortable on tarmac. And he was fastest in shakedown. He repeated this result on the first real stage, but like so often things did not go Kubica’s way when on Saturday he was stopped by two punctures. With only one spare he couldn’t do anything else than retire for the day. The Pole never gives up and was second on the PowerStage but his overall 22nd place was not what he had hoped for in the beginning of the rally. He now seems to be prepar-ing his 2016 season as we saw pictures of him testing an R5 car. But here at Rally-eMag we hope he’ll stay in a World Rallycar.

Fuckmatié World Rallyteam It seems to be the same story like many drivers in Corsica but Lorenzo Bertelli was not a happy man either. He even called his car undrivable. He tried all kinds of things but came to the conclusion that the grand total of the local circumstance, his tires and a front differential that did not work as it should, made Corsica an experience ‘like hell’ as he indicated. Things got even worse when he had an issue with the organizers about his starting position in the Pow-erStage. This issue meant the Italian would not be in the live TV coverage. He disagreed strongly and decided to retire before the start of the PowerStage.

Jipocar Czech National TeamCorsica did not bring a birthday present for Martin Prokop. Like many others he did not come to grips with the ever-changing grip situation on the French island. He finished the rally in 12th, stating this was his worst rally ever. We hope this disappointment does not lead to his withdrawal from the champion-ship next year as shortly after the event he presented his plans to start in next year’s Dakar.


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Tour de Corse / Results

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Overall final classification

1. Latvala/Anttila VW Polo R WRC 2:39:46.72. Evans/Barritt Ford Fiësta WRC +43.13. Mikkelsen/Floene VW Polo R WRC +46.34. Meeke/Nagle Citroën DS3 WRC +1:33.45. Paddon/Kennard Hyundai i20 WRC +1:53.66. Østberg/Andersson Citroën DS3 WRC +1:59.87. Sordo/Marti Hyundai i20 WRC +2:10.48. Bouffier/De la Haye Ford Fiësta WRC +2:12.89. Sarrazin/Renucci Ford Fiësta WRC +2:39.310. Tanak/Molder Ford Fiësta WRC +3:43.0

2015 FIA WRCManufacturers’ Standings

1. Volkswagen Motorsport 3692. Citroën Total Abu Dhabi WRT 1843. Hyundai Motorsport 1834. M-Sport WRT 1705. Volkswagen Motorsport II 91 6. Hyundai Motorsport N 59 7. Jipocar Czech National Team 45 8. FWRT 9

Tour de Corse / Standings

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2015 FIA WRCDrivers’ Standings1. Sébastien Ogier 2382. Jari-Matti Latvala 1603. Andreas Mikkelsen 1264. Mads Østberg 985. Thierry Neuville 866. Kris Meeke 837. Elfyn Evans 818. Hayden Paddon 669. Ott Tänak 6310. Dani Sordo 62

Dutch WRC photographer Erik van ‘t Land releases his new calendar.The best action from the WRC from all over the world in 12 pages.

You can order it now! €15 or two for €25 (excl. shipping).Email [email protected] for more info.

RallyRACC Catalunya-Costa Daurada / Overview

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Based in: Salou

Date: 22-25/10/15

Number of stages: 23

Shortest stage: Salou, 2.24 km

Longest stage: Terra Alta, 35.68 km


Surface: Mixed

RallyRACC Catalunya-Costa Daurada

Image: Bas Romeny

RallyRACC Catalunya-Costa Daurada / Review

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the handsome

wonA lot has been decided already in the World Rally Championship, still Spain is an interesting round. First of all it’s the only round that in-cludes tarmac and gravel stages. So after the first day the cars have to be rebuild from gravel specs to tarmac specs. Secondly it had one of the most beautiful inaugural stages of the championship (with the possible exception of the Gua-najuato street stage in Mexico) and Spain is (in)famous for rally ending crashes. This year’s Spanish WRC round proved to be no different.

Words: Harry van Veenendaal

Images: Bas Romeny


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This year’s Rally RACC Catalunya Costa Daura-da or Rally Spain as most people refer to it was all about second places. Volkswagen is the con-structor’s champion, Sebastien Ogier is cham-pion and he will probably win Spain (many peo-ple thought…) So everything is concentrated on earning points for the constructor’s champion-ship, where Citroën, Hyundai and M-Sport can still clinch second place and the runner–up posi-tion in the driver’s championship with Jari Matti Latvala, Andreas Mikkelsen en Mads Østberg still in contention.

On the entry list there were not so many surprises. Al Qassimi and Lefebvre joined the ranks of Cit-roën again making the grand total of World Ral-lycar entries 15. At Hyundai they had the same line up as in most cases this year with Neuville and local hero Sordo in the main team. In the ‘N’ team just one driver this time: Hayden Paddon, the team’s rising star. Just before the start of the

rally he had some good news: he got a three-year contract with the team.

The routeSpain has a well-known concept now. It starts with a full day of (mainly) gravel stages and then continues with the super smooth asphalt stages Catalunya has always been famous for. However over half the stage mileage is on different roads than in the past. So the recce is again hard work for the teams. The Barcelona stage again is the opening stage. It’s not only tricky because of it’s tight bends and unforgivable Armco barriers but it’s got the extra challenge of driving it in full gravel specs, that the cars need the next day. For the mechanics Spain always has the extra bonus of rebuilding a gravel car into a tarmac car overnight. But by now the modern rally cars can be changed into other specs quite easily.

Let the games beginShakedown was ‘won’ by Hayden Paddon. He was marginally faster than Ogier, Kubica and Tänak. After shakedown all teams travelled to the Catalonian capital Barcelona where they had to tackle the stage around the Montjuich hill. In 1992 the Spanish Olympics took place here so you could appropriately say: Let the games be-gin!

Ogier was fastest of course, but second place was a bit of a surprise as Neuville who posted-second best time did not have the proper use of his handbrake. Mikkelsen, Meeke and Kubi-ca made it through the tight bends as well and together made up the top five. Sebastien Ogi-er proved that apart from being the best driver around he is also a clairvoyant, though no one realised it when he said: “I was leading in Cor-sica as well, and that didn’t end well, so let’s see about this rally after the final stage!”

Paddon came to Spain on a high having just signed a new 3-year deal. Ogier topped the shakedown times, but remained cautious about his chances.


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Proper beginningsThe Friday in Spain means gravel. This also means Ogier, being first on the road will lose time. And he does, but at the end of the first loop he is back on top again. Robert Kubica has been leading the rally on stage 3 and 4, but loses time when he first has to change a flat tyre and a bit further has an-other puncture. Østberg, sec-ond on that moment, also hits trouble. He has a slow puncture making it hard for him to drive consistently. Lorenzo Bertelli is already out as he rolled in stage 2. Ogier is fastest before the midday service. He leads Latvala by 0.8 seconds. In the afternoon a cat and mouse play develops between team breth-ren Ogier and Latvala. Latvala took the lead on stage six and was challenged by Tänak who realised three scratches. On stage nine (the last stage of the day and with just under 36 kilo-metres the longest in the rally), Ogier did what he does best: tyre preservation. Six kilometres were on tarmac. And unlike oth-ers he used his tyres in such a way that there was grip on both surfaces. By the end of the stage he was leading the rally

again, so that makes Latvala second, Tanak third and Sordo fourth. Robert Kubica had an-other puncture this afternoon and was almost completely stopped when his gearbox refused to shift from first to any other gear. Bad luck does not seem to leave Kubica’s side.

Ogier vs Latvala vs MikkelsenBefore Corsica Latvala ‘prom-ised’ he would win the three re-maining events of the 2015 sea-son, so everybody expected a battle between him and Ogier. Technical issues decided dif-ferently. During the two first stages of the first ‘asphalt’ day the Finn suffered from ‘spongy’ brakes. “I know how to solve the problem,” Latvala says. “But there is no time.” And in-deed bleeding the brakes takes some time and the brakes do work, only there is no nice feel-ing in the pedal and of course brakes you cannot completely trust do not help your confi-dence. After two stages Latvala could use his brakes again and got going again. Unfortunately he cut a corner a bit too eager. In a way you could say he was lucky to get away with ‘just’ a flat tyre but it cost him dearly.


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Ogier could relax a bit and en-joyed himself on the, as he said, ‘great stages. ‘Cruising’ on the somewhat dirty parts of the stages and pushing on the clean ones he drove to the finish thus creating a 54 seconds gap to Latvala. Once Latvala was prop-erly driving again he did drive some scratches, but Ogier was always on his tail. Another threat came from behind as Mikkelsen stealthily came closer. His third place made it a Volkswagen 1, 2, 3 again. But the battle was not over yet as Mikkelsen had made himself a promise to pass Latvala. Ogier was on course for another win, but as he told us at the end of the day: “We still have to run 80 kilometres tomorrow...”

Thrilling finaleAs we said earlier the battle be-tween the team colleagues really broke lose during the last day. Well Ogier relaxed but Mikkelsen (4 stage wins) and Latvala (2 wins) went down to the wire. After the penultimate stage the difference between the two was down to 1.4 seconds (in favour of the Norwegian), so all was down to the PowerStage. WRC promoter Oliver Ciesla wanted PowerStages to be thrilling. Last year he conceived all kinds of intricate schemes to make them more attractive. These schemes were rejected but in Spain we

could see what he meant by the thrills of a decisive PowerStage. Almost every next driver beat his predecessor and the stage times grew faster every run. Near the end of the stage tension grew. As we said earlier Spain was all about second places, so here too everyone was looking at the great battle between Mikkelsen and Ogier. When the Finn had finished the PowerStage he was faster then everyone else before him. Fastest behind him was Meeke and he crushed Meeke’s time by no less than 3.5 sec-onds. Obviously the Finn was happy but he kept watching the large screen at the stage end. His smile more or less froze when the Mikkelsen’s splits were displayed. These were no good news to Latvala. Mikkelsen found the last piece of extra speed and improved Latvala’s time by 1.7 seconds. Mikkelsen was quite happy to have done the job. He had beaten his rival. Still in his car on the finish line the news came through. Ogier is off! Eve-ryone started to tell the Norwe-gian. He wouldn’t and couldn’t believe it. Then after a brief mo-ment with an utterly surprised face he turned to Ola Fløene next to him in the car: “We won!” Then the tears came. Tears of joy for the first time they won a WRC rally.

RallyRACC Catalunya-Costa Daurada / Round-up

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Round-up

Volkswagen World Rallyteam M-Sport World Rally TeamEvery now and then your top

driver doesn’t deliver. At Volk-swagen this happened twice in a row. Both in Corsica and in Spain Ogier, being the team’s (and the sport’s) absolute top driver, did not deliver. In Corsica he at least showed being the best by winning the PowerStage, but in Spain it all went wrong on the PowerStage. Ogier went off trying to win another double (Rally + PowerStage) but came back empty handed. Is that a disaster? Perhaps it is for Ogier’s ego. But his current status is not affected. It merely shows he is hu-man and actually can make a rare mistake. For Jost Capito it was no problem either especially as his other two drivers put some salt and pepper in the action so that Spain was an interesting rally.

A good thing for Capito also was the fact that his youngest driver is capable of beating his other driv-ers and of winning rallies. Latvala may not be so happy but he was in contention and can therefore now say he threw away the asphalt jinx that seemed to bother him for a long time. At several occasions he now has proven he can be fast on the black stuff.

For Mikkelsen it was a very good rally. It would have been if Ogier hadn’t ran off. On the last part of the rally he outpaced his team rival. But beating Ogier in the process was just the icing on the cake for his Spanish achievement. He now really belongs to the big boys, an asset to any team.

After the very good result in Corsica, Spain was quite an-other story. Initially Tänak went well and was in third place at the end of day one. But from then on things went wrong. The Estonian lost a wheel and not much later we saw Evans balancing on a small wall at the edge of ravine after hav-ing gone off the road. Malcolm Wilson was quite clear when he commented: “Well if they wanted to impress me here, they haven’t done a good job.” And this is now his problem. Both his drivers are OK drivers

but they seem to lack the ex-tra little bit needed to consist-ently make I to the top. But his financial possibilities are not big enough to hire a new driver that has this ability. Tanak ac-knowledges this fact. “Well this is what I can do, nothing more, nothing less. If this is not going to bring me a permanent seat next year, well that’s the way it is. Hopes of being second in the constructor’s champion-ship are rapidly fading, but there is always Wales Rally GB perhaps there the drivers can deliver.

RallyRACC Catalunya-Costa Daurada / Round-up

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For Hyundai it was a difficult rally. They had wanted to regain second position in the constructor’s cham-pionship and they did not do that. Dani Sordo was the best driver and reached the podium in his home event, but Thierry Neuville did not follow. It seems true he has a prob-lem. Let’s hope he will get over it in Wales where there is no pressure on him. In Spain he never found the confidence and a spin in Sunday morning did not help. Still he was on course to deliver some good points when he went into a ditch. It was due to a gearbox problem, but it does add up to his not so positive season.

Hayden Paddon is not an asphalt specialist, still he is learning fast and had an OK run through the

Spanish stages and was faster than teammate Thierry Neuville. At the end he was fully prepared to let his colleague pass in order to gain some more valuable constructor’s points. When, after the penultimate stage Paddon was told Neuville had gone off, he wasn’t happy, to put it very mildly. He would have preferred for the Hyundai team to be equal in points before the start of the last rally. This would have been the case if Neuville had kept his position and Paddon would have let him past. As it did not hap-pen Paddon now feels a stronger tension on his shoulders to deliver in Wales. On the positive side, he knows he has a contract for next year, so he doesn’t have to worry about that.

In Spain Citroën only aimed at one thing: keeping the runner up po-sition. As they did that we could say: Mission accomplished.

Mads Østberg would agree with this statement. He knew he had to win some time on the first day’s gravel stages. Unfortunately he lost some time suffering from a slow puncture on the long Terra Alta stage. But his smile did not disappear from his face and his fourth place was a good reward for all his positive action on the Spanish stages. He thought it was his best asphalt rally ever. It earned him some good points for his employer’s goal and in the end he was faster than his team-mate, if only by just under 2 sec-onds.

Kris Meeke is a winner, so if he doesn’t win he is not happy. But winning valuable points for your

team is also important, so Meeke never forgot that and delivered, perhaps improving a bit his chances of getting another full WRC drive next year. However we will have to wait until after the season’s end to be sure of any-thing.

For Stéphane Lefebvre Spain was to be a learning experience, especially on the first day, as his experience in a World Rallycar on gravel is limited. As expected he did lose some time on the soft surface. On Saturday he did not come very far as a braking issue side-lined him before he even started the stages. On the final day he performed just outside the top ten, where we would have expected him to be, but losing a whole day rallying on this level doesn’t help to build your experi-ence.

Citroen Total Abu Dhabi WRTHyundai Shell World Rally Team

RK World Rallyteam Though a lot of rumours, partly imitated by himself, are told about Robert Kubica, it is still unclear what will happen next year. The fact is the Pole is really considering other options. Although he still loves rallying he says he cannot go on like this in future. However he started really well in Spain. He even led the rally for some time. But then the ‘usual things’ started to happen: punctures, some technical issues and a slight off, making Spain another disappointing rally for him.

Fuckmatié World Rallyteam If Corsica was an experience of hell we wonder how Lorenzo Bertelli would rate his Spanish result. Dur-ing his whole rally he made it through one stop finish. On Friday he first spinned and then after just under 3 kilometres he rolled. On Saturday he lasted a bit longer because it took him no less than 4.8 kilome-tres to end up in a barrier and to damage his Fiesta in such a way that it was game over after just over 10 kilometres of competition that surely must rate as another experience of hell….

Jipocar Czech National TeamThe best way to describe Martin Prokop’s performance in Spain is: All is well that ends well. He had his share of ‘issues’ ranging form an inter-com that did not work, some punctures and an overshoot. But generally he had a good rally and he seemed to enjoy himself, which cannot be said about all rallies this year. The good ending we revered to earlier was a seventh position.

RallyRACC Catalunya-Costa Daurada / Results

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1. Mikkelsen/Floene VW Polo R WRC 3:21:04.82. Latvala/Antilla VW Polo R WRC +3.13. Sordo/Marti Hyundai i20 WRC +21.24. Østberg/Andersson Citroën DS 3 WRC +1:06.35. Meeke/Nagle Citroën DS 3 WRC +1:08.26. Paddon/Kennard Hyundai i20 WRC +1:23.37. Prokop/Tomanek Ford Fiesta RS WRC +4:14.28. Neuville/Gilsoul Hyundai i20 WRC +8:01.99. Tidemand/Axelsson Skoda Fabia R5 + 08:56.810. Kopecky-Dresler Skoda Fabia R5 + 09:07.5

2015 FIA WRCManufacturers’ Standings

1. Volkswagen Motorsport 387 (Champions)2. Citroën Total Abu Dhabi WRT 2063. Hyundai Motorsport 2024. M-Sport WRT 1735. Volkswagen Motorsport II 1166. Hyundai Motorsport N 67 7. Jipocar Czech National Team 51 8. FWRT 9

RallyRACC Catalunya-Costa Daurada / Standings

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2015 FIA WRCDrivers’ Standings1. Sébastien Ogier 238 (Champion)2. Jari-Matti Latvala 1803. Andreas Mikkelsen 1544. Mads Østberg 1105. Kris Meeke 946. Thierry Neuville 907. Elfyn Evans 818. Dani Sordo 779. Hayden Paddon 7410. Ott Tänak 63

the dutchies As we are based in The Netherlands, we’ve got to show some love for our Dutch compatriots tackling the WRC!

Words: Harry van Veenendaal; Images:Bas Romeny

Rally-eMag / The Dutchies

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In Spain the last rounds of the Drive DMack Fiesta Trophy were run. Two Dutch teams were in Spain to show their best.

Mats van den Brand showed his speed in the first stage through the streets of Barcelona. He was second fastest behind Brendan Reeves, but as Reeves did not compete in all the rallies, he wasn’t eligible to score points, so van den Brand got the bonus point for a scratch on stage one. The next day van den Brand parked his car upside down beside the road damaging his car in such a way that he could not restart. His trophy chal-lenge was over.

The second driver from the Netherlands was Kevin van Deijne. On day one he finished fifth scoring some points for the trophy and at the second scoring point on Sunday he did even better and finished in fourth. He had expected more of his DDFT campaign: “The competition has been tough this year and more like survival for me. I didn’t expect it to be like this and wanted the season to be more smooth and consistent. But on the most part it’s been lots of fun and a really great way for me to get more experience and that’s the main thing I think.” In the final classification of th trophy he was fifth, just behind Ghislain de Mevius and jist before his fellow Dutchman Mats van den Brand. The final standings of the trophy saw Marius Aasen as the winner of both the rally and the trophy.

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Feature / WRC5 The Game

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WRC 5: the gameAfter a two-year wait since the latest installment of the official WRC games, Big Ben teamed up with Kylotonn Games to develop a completely new version for the fifth install-ment of the rally simulator. The new developer started from scratch to build a brand new game and the guys at Big Ben were kind enough to send us a copy so we could try the game ourselves.

Start overRather than updating and polishing the previous version of the game, Kylotonn Games started from scratch with the development of the game. This enabled them to build the game from the ground up, and focus on the areas they felt were the most important for a good rally game. The first things on the list, as they should be, were the car the physics and handling. Game direc-tor Alain Jarniou often points this out as the main ‘feature’ of the game. Unlike circuit racing, rally-ing takes the drivers to various different surfaces that all have unique characteristics. For any rally game to be successful, the cars have to feel like they are actually on that surface. To make sure the game provides the proper rally feeling, 2013 WRC 3 champion Sebastien Chardonnet provid-ed technical advice to the development team.

Previous gen versus current genThe game is available for both the current gen consoles (PS4, Xbox One and PC) and previous

gen consoles (PS3, Xbox 360, PlayStation Vita), which provided an additional challenge for the developers. Obviously the current gen machines are far more powerful than their predecessors and can provide a richer gaming experience, but with a very large install base, the older ma-chines are still a must to reach all fans. However it does mean that to make the game playable on the older consoles, some sacrifices had to be made. From out point of view the developers took the right decision by focusing on the game-play first. The feel of the cars will be exactly the same on the previous gen as it is on the current gen, with the latter providing far better graphics.

So far so goodWith a strong focus on gameplay, the develop-ers seem to be heading in the right direction to deliver a great rally game. So the question is, did they succeed?

Rather than updating and polishing the previous version of the game, Kylotonn Games started from scratch with the de-velopment of the game.

WRC5 The GameOfficial

videogame of the WRC

Words: Steven van Veenendaal

Images: PR

PlatformsPS3, PS4, PS

Vita, XBox 360, XBox One, PC


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First stepsWe are not a gam-ing magazine so we don’t have all the latest consoles lying around the office, but luck-ily one of our re-porters did have a PS3 on which we could try the game for ourselves. Full of confidence we fired up the game and selected Se-bastien Ogier’s VW Polo WRC for our first special stage. In order to get the most realistic expe-rience, we turned off all driving aids and put the pedal to the metal. Half-way through the stage, the car was a wreck, just like our egos, this wasn’t as easy as any arcade racer you might come across. For the casual gamer the fast cars are a serious handful at first. Luckily the game allows you to ease into it through the career mode.

Career modeIn this mode you start of as young driver in the WRC3 championship and try to move up the ranks on your way to WRC glory. After our Polo WRC fiasco, the DS3 R3’s of the WRC3 championship provided a sigh of relieve, this car we could actually control. As you progress from rally to rally, you are often advised to visit the rally school to learn techniques that will help improve your driving skills and result in faster stage times (and less damage…) Although some of the lessons are tricky to pass, they do really help you improve. After a couple of rallies you start to get

the hang of it and feel like you can really start to push. For us this was when the game really opened up. It only took a couple of hours but we went from trying to just keep the car on the road to pushing hard to fight for victory. Once you reach this point the fact that the graphics are not great on the PS3 version didn’t bother us in the slightest. All you look at is the road in front of you and the corner coming up. It shows that game-play is far more important for an immersive experience than graphics.

Other modesOnce you complete the career mode by winning the WRC crown, the real fun starts. You are now fully capable of controlling the WRC cars and can start spending hour after hour to improve on your stage times, or take on your friends in the multiplayer modes.


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It’s all goodOr is it? Even though we thoroughly enjoyed the game, there are some aspects that require improvement. As we all know, rallying is a team sport with a team made up of a driver, co-driver and mechanics. The mechanics are around in the game, but the setup options of the car are rather limited. For most people that’s probably a good thing as it allows you to go out and rally rather than tinkering with setup details. Some more ‘hardcore rally fans’ might consider this a missed opportunity though.

What we found far more annoying was the teamwork between the driver and the co-driver, or actually the co-driver himself. The voice is rather monotonous and never gives you the feeling that there is actually somebody with you in the car. Worse is that he seems to slip up far

too often for a professional co-driver. Sometimes he just cuts out and refuses to read out any notes for two or three corners. When one of those corners is a blind hairpin, things tend to escalate rather quickly. Also the timing of the notes could be improved, even though we set the timing to very early, there were still a couple of moments were we had to slam the breaks and come to a halt just in front of a tree to then hear the co-driver state “Brake! Hairpin right”. Once you start to get to know the stages a bit better, this becomes less of an issue, but it can be frustrating at times.

Another point of frustration can be the ‘invisible walls’ surrounding the stages. They will either respawn you back in the stage or give you a 30 second time penalty. Neither of these work well for the immersion of the game. We found ourselves misjudging a corner and heading for asteep drop at a 100mph, only to instantly respawn back on the road, without touching any of the trees that loomed ahead. In rallying, when you mess up, the trees should serve to provide an adequate level of punishment while here they never really got the chance. The penalties are ok, but sometimes a bit too strict. After cutting a hairpin maybe a meter too tight, you are slammed with a 30 second penalty. Perhaps it’s justifiable, but for any casual gamer it’s mostly just annoying.


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Full licenseWRC 5 The Game takes full advantage of its official li-cense by including all fac-tory teams in the game, along with many privateers. It’s great to be able to drive Lorenzo Bertelli’s dark green Fiesta or Eamonn Bo-land’s Subaru. In total over 60 teams can be selected with all cars from the WRC, WRC2 and WRC3 catego-ries available. A very nice little feature is that in career mode, not all drivers take part in each rally, they ac-tually follow the schedule of the current WRC season. It might be a bit nerdy, bit we found this a very nice touch, although when we decided to join the Skoda team after winning the WRC3 catego-ry it was a bit of a surprise when we learned that Portu-gal would be our first rally of the season!

All thirteen rounds of the WRC are included in the game as well, taking you from Monte Carlo to Wales, with stops around the world in between. The sensation when you load Ouninpohja for the first time is real. However we also feel they could have done a bit

better with the layout of the stages. Of course it is impossible to fully include and realistically model all stages, but it would have been nice if some actual locations were included. On Ouninpohja you want to fly past the yellow house and on the Fafe stage you want to fling your car around the iconic hairpin junction before flying over the big jump. None of these events occur, making you feel like you are driving just any other stage rather than one of the sport’s classics.

VerdictThere are flaws, but then nearly all games have flaws and some of them like the respawning and co-driver look fixable with a patch or two. For us, the flaws never got the upper hand and in-stead we had a really good time driving around the stages and just for a mo-ment feeling like we were actually out there giving Mr. Ogier a run for his money.

With a little bit of practice, WRC5 The Game enables you to take control of your favorite WRC car and run all official events of the 2015 WRC calendar.

Seajets Acropolis Rally / Overview

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Based in: Loutraki

Date: 10-11/10/15

Number of stages: 9

Shortest stage: Athikia, 17.93 km

Longest stage: Kineta-Loutraki, 43.19 km


Surface: Gravel

seajets acropolis rally

Image: FIA ERC

Seajets Acropolis Rally / Review

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wet and wild

The heavy thunderstorm that tormented the Rallye de France on Corsica a week before had drifted down the Mediterrane-an. Mainland Greece was hit by heavy downpours result-ing in the cancellation of part of the rally. One man probably wasn’t too bothered by it all, Kajto Kajetanowicz snatched his first ERC title in Greece.

Words: Steven van Veenendaal

Images: FIA ERC


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Loutraki MiraclePrior to the rally there was still a two-way fight for the European crown between Kajetanowicz and Craig Breen. The latter of the two got his season of to a great start with three consecutive wins in Latvia, Ireland and the Acores. However in the second half of the year his results took a hit and his title aspirations started to decline. During the latest four rallies the Irishman only managed to score a meager 19 points, quite dif-ferent from the 95 that Kajetanowicz racked up. Quite frankly, Breen needed a ‘Loutraki Miracle’ to stand any chance of catching his Polish rival. Although the heavy rain made this year’s Acrop-olis a very special one, the Loutraki Miracle nev-er materialized.

Surprise in the nightWe didn’t have to wait too long for the first dra-matic plot twist. The opening stage of the rally was run twice on Saturday with the second run-ning (a shortened version of the 43 km mammoth opener) under the cover of night. Kajetanowicz drew first blood by winning the opening stage, but that wasn’t biggest shock of the first day. On his way to the second stage Breen’s Peugeot started to malfunction. The team remained rath-er vague about what sort of issue was bother-ing the car but it was sever enough for Breen to attempt emergency roadside repairs. Mind you, those gravel roads had turned into mud rivers and as a result Breen and co-driver Scott Mar-tin had to start the stage drenched in the brown

stuff. At the stage end it turns out they only lost half a minute, not too bad considering the diffi-culties they had. Kajetanowicz isn’t a big fan of rallying in the dark and when he finds out Breen has hit trouble, he immediately eases of the throttle. As a result, surprisingly enough, Kajetanowicz loses time to Breen, despite his troubles. After all the excite-ment the surprise leader at the end of the open-ing day is local ace Lambros Athanassoulas in his Skoda Fabia R5.

Athanassouls is the surprise leader after the opening day. Despite technical issues, Breen follows suit in second.


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More bad luck On Sunday morning Kajetanow-icz is again the first to jump out of the gate. On the next two stages though, Breen fights right back. His times on stages four and five are outright impressive. In a span of just two stages he takes nearly a minute out of Kajetano-wicz. At that point the two had already passed Athanassoulas again and Breens seems to be heading for victory. But as has been the case so of-ten this season, it wasn’t to be for Breen. On stage six Breen’s bonnet suddenly pops open mid-stage and smashes into the windscreen. Despite barely see-ing the road, Breen and Martin push on although they can only watch as Kajetanowicz retakes the lead. His lead is just ten sec-onds and with three more stag-es remaining, Breen isn’t too worried. After all, he has been the fastest driver throughout the event.

Dark cloudsIt’s not just Kajetanowicz he has

to contend with though. Dark clouds are forming over the ser-vice park in Loutraki and Breen starting to worry, just like the event organizers. Fear becomes reality when the clouds break and far more water falls from the skies. At this point, the organiz-ers find themselves in a difficult situation and conclude the rally can continue no further.

Champion!The decision immediately hands victory to Kajetanowicz and as over 69% of the rallyroute has been run, full championship points are awarded. The full points are enough for Kajetano-wicz to also clinch the European title. He remains courteous by stating “Of course I feel bad for Craig Breen who drove a very strong rally, this is not how you want to win the rally and the championship” before adding “But I am very happy to take the European crown, it might be the best day of my life!”

Top to bottom:Kajetanowicz and Breen battled the entire rally, but it was the Pole who got the last laugh.

Seajets Acropolis Rally / Results

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1. Kajetanowicz – Baran Ford Fiesta R5 1:32.11,12. Breen – Martin Peugeot 208 T16 +10,03. Athanassoulas – Zakhaeos Skoda Fabia R5 +15,34. Tarabus – Trunkat Skoda Fabia S2000 +3.12,55. Botka – Szeles Mitsubishi Lancer +3.54,56. Jeets – Toom Ford Fiesta R5 +4.30,97. Butvilas – Heller Subaru Impreza +4.40,68. Tlustak – Kucera Skoda Fabia S2000 +8.48,29. Panteli – Constantinou Mitsubishi Lancer +11.44,010. Serderidis – Miclotte Citroën DS3 R5 +11.45,8

2015 FIA ERC Drivers Standings

1. Kajetan Kajetanowicz Ford Fiesta R5 230 pts2. Craig Breen Peugeot 208 T16 158 pts3. Alexey Lukyanuk Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X 120 pts4. Robert Consani Citroën DS3 R5 79 pts5. Jaromir Tarabus Skoda Fabia S2000 75 pts6. Bruno Magalhães Peugeot 208 T16 68 pts7. Dominykas Butvilas Subaru Impreza WRX STi 45 pts8. Siim Plangi Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX 43 pts9. Jan Kopecky Skoda Fabia R5 36 pts10. Freddy Loix Skoda Fabia R5 35 pts

Seajets Acropolis Rally / Results

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Rally-eMag / For My Friends

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for my friendsWhen travelling the world to snap the WRC, our photographer Bas Romeny comes across many interesting scenes, both rally re-lated and not-so rally related. Here are his finds from Spain.

Wooden shoes --> That’s a Dutchie!

They still sell this!

Two days before the rally.

Friday action, faster and more people!

Followed by a truck

In Salou, dreaming at a pace car

Sordo had a tire pres-sure issue here

Nice shadows

Weren’t we all young...

It was a colourful Norwegian party

see you next time...

rally-emag 032 october 2015

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