Story: Evan Rothman
Pictures: Eva Kovkova
WRC Vodafone Rallye de Portugal: 27 – 31 May 2010
Portugal welcomes the World Rally Championship (WRC) crews with open arms this weekend for Round Six of the 2010 WRC calendar, the Vodafone Rallye de Portugal. Hundreds of thousands of rally fans are expected to line the rally’s stages this weekend, drawing in what promises to be another nail biting and dramatic rally.
As with last year, the event will be based in the Algarve and Baixo Alentejo regions f Portugal’s south coast. The exciting Super Special Stage will be held once more at the Estadio Algarve, which opens and concludes the rally action here. The rest of the stages are based in the Serra do Caldeirao hills in the north of Faro. Each leg of the rally will be divided into two identical loops split by a return to the service park. For 2010, only 9% of the rally route is new and one stage on Day One will be run in the opposite direction.
This event’s being run two months later than in previous editions means that the Vodafone Rallye de Portugal will be hotter and drier making the stages more slippery and dusty. The roads used for this event are a challenging blend of fast and open roads with technical sections on this loose and abrasive gravel surface.
Sebastien Loeb/Daniel Elena (Citroen Total World Rally Team) have proven the most successful thus far this season. This event also brings to a close a series of five gravel events, in which Loeb has topped the podium thrice. BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team’s Jari-Matti Latvala and Miika Anttila recorded their first win of 2010 in the previous rally, the WRC Rally New Zealand, to break Loeb’s stranglehold on gravel events.
Interestingly, Loeb scored four podiums in the last four rounds, with only Petter Solberg/Phil Mills (Petter Solberg World Rally Team) challenging the works drivers with three podiums in the same period. Latvala has finished twice on the podium, while his team-mates Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen only finished once on the podium. As it stands Citroen enters this rally with an advantage over the Ford runners with Loeb having won here twice in previous outings, but I would not discount Hirvonen on this weekend’s fast roads…
It was in last year’s edition that Latvala and co-driver Anttila escaped with no injuries the biggest crash in recent WRC history. A driver error on a left hand corner saw their Ford Focus RS WRC plunge more than 150 meters down a hillside, rolling and destroying their car. This video has been viewed more than 800 000 times on YouTube. “That stage will be used again this year and when I drive through it during the recce I will slow down and take a quick look where we went off,” said Latvala. “I will be changing my pace notes for that corner! But I’ve put the crash behind me and I won’t treat that stage any differently in the rally itself.”
With Ford recording its amazing 75th win in New Zealand, and closing Citroen’s lead in the Manufacturers’ Championship to just five points, the World Rally Championship is still wide open. Vodafone Rallye de Portugal will be a thriller!
[…] WRC Vodafone Rallye de Portugal: EVENT PREVIEW – PLUS Shakedown … […]