The World Rally Championship has already crowned its Champions of 2010, but with the final round to run this weekend rally fans expect an all-out battle in the Welsh forest stages.
Wales Rally GB is the highlight for many rally crews and fans as the rally often adds its unique challenges and weather conditions to the regular high-speed, always sideways and sometimes-airborne antics of the WRC cars. Starting tonight with its all-asphalt Spectator Super Special Stage in Cardiff Bay, competitors in the WRC and S-WRC (Super 2000 World Rally Championship) categories will need to push their machines to their limits (and beyond) in all of the event’s 20 testing stages.
Petter Solberg and Chris Patterson (Petter Solberg World Rally Team) have been knocking on the door for a win throughout 2010, but it is this event that Petter “Hollywood” Solberg has been eyeing to leave his mark on in 2010. The rally’s 344.96km of competition also suit the sweeping and attacking style of up-and-coming rally aces Sebastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassi (Citroen Total World Rally Team). A strong performance in 2009 from this young duo put them on the map, and they will be looking to add his third win of the season to the Championship scoreboard. With team-mates Sebastien Loeb/Daniel Elena already having wrapped up the WRC title, rally fans would like to see the seven-times Champion give it his all in this the final encounter of the year.
Adding to the mix this weekend is the fact this event is the last outing for the current WRC crop of cars. New regulations for 2011 see a new breed of World Rally Car debuting with a 1.6-litre turbocharged motor coupled to a 4WD transmission. Both Citroen and Ford are hoping to claim the final win for the WRC history books.
Ford’s mighty Focus RS WRC cars will close their glorious WRC chapter here too, with Mikko Hirvonen/Jarmo Lehtinen and Jari-Matti Latvala/Miika Anttila leading the Blue Oval charge. With the weather ahead of the rally looking to bring wet and muddy conditions to the this weekend’s stages, the Ford crews feel they will be on equal footing to fight for the overall rally win. It will be a tough challenge to outpace the experienced Norwegian Solberg and the flying Frenchman Ogier, but Hirvonen and Latvala both are unafraid of rolling up their sleeves for a hammer-and-tongs fight to the finish.
Friday’s leg of the rally visits the classic Hafren and Myherin tests in mid-Wales, with a brief 15min service in Builth Wells splitting two loops of the same stages. Saturday is the longest leg of the event with two new stages and an 11km asphalt section on the Epynt military ranges in mid-Wales as part of a 25.14km mixed surface stage near Brecon. The final day in the south includes a revised version of the famous Resolfen test in the Vale of Neath. Enjoy every moment of this final 2010 WRC event!
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