Finally!!!! - Rallye Monte Carlo

[M-Sport fan]

MAJOR CONGRATS to Sebastien Ogier and co-driver Julien Ingrassa for winning the 85th running of the Rallye Monte Carlo!!!

It seems that it WAS a lack of top level drivers/co-drivers which was holding back Ford and M-SPORT after all!!

NOT to take away from the ever improving Ott Tanak and Raigo Molder duo, who drove back to a well-deserved third (would have been a second!) from some mechanicals.

GREAT to finally see a win after 5 years, and on the Monte with a new car/spec, and a new to the team driver no less!!

I needed some good news after all the crap lately.

Now I just HOPE that MAV TV finalizes, and renews it's contract with WRC+/WRC Promoter GmbH so that we can see the coverage (they did not confirm a contract yet, and did not show Monte carlo live ) of this great win for the Fiesta, and hopefully all of the future ones on the championship.

 

[enamelizer]

Yeah, big grats to the team, it was a huge win for them. Ott hanging on to third after going down to 3 cylinders was equally impressive IMO.

You could tell Seb was pushing hard and had no answer at all for Thierry's speed, Seb was making some very uncharacteristic mistakes. Thierry was completely in control from the start, totally unfazed from the champion breathing down his neck. But all it takes is one mistake, and going 20cm wide in the wrong spot was the difference between victory and defeat for Thierry. Super gutted for him, but really happy to see his speed from the start of 2016 coming back.

And how about JML taking 2nd in the brand new car with a brand new team? Did not expect that level of performance from them. If Meeke gets in the game and can stop crashing out (and I really think he can), this season is going to be crazy with the amount of competition!

A couple other impressive runs: Breen taking 5th in a 2016 car, way down on power, and Mikkelsen taking 7th in a freaking R5 spec car! How he is without a seat is just crazy.

Also, redbull.tv had excellent coverage, they even had the live SS12 stage. In addition to commentary by Matthew Wilson and Mark Webber, they had the best rally coverage I have seen since Eurosport covered the Monte when it was an IRC round.

A truly brilliant Monte, aside from the tragedy on the opening night.

 

[M-Sport fan]

A truly brilliant Monte, aside from the tragedy on the opening night.

I did not even hear about that until you just mentioned a tragedy, and then I looked it up.

That truly does SUCK, and as bad as I feel for the spectator and his family/friends, I certainly hope this is NOT the beginning of shades of the 'Killer B' era, and the resultant drastic reduction in spec/rules of the cars to Group A, and then kit spec.

Being a self-admitted Nippon Giant hater (as IF everyone on here could not tell LOL), I am NOT excited (nor happy) to see them do well, as much as I respect JML as a pilot, but also NOT surprised given the coin they pour into the effort.
In fact, I hope that he is the ONLY one on the team that ever gets any results, so at least we are guaranteed that TOY does not get the manufacturers championship.