Ogier scores first win for the VW Polo R WRC

Sebastien Ogier gave VW their first WRC victory for the Polo R in just their second outing.  For Sebastien Loeb instead, Rally Sweden will remain somewhat of a "bête noire" (or should it be a bête blanche?),  his only winwas  in 2004 and it was obviously one trophy  he hoped to score in this his final abbreviated season.

2013 Rally Sweden:

Pos  Driver              Team/Car              Time/Gap
 1.  Sebastien Ogier     VW                  3h11m41.9s
 2.  Sebastien Loeb      Citroen                + 41.8s
 3.  Mads Ostberg        Qatar M-Sport Ford   + 1m24.5s
 4.  Jari-Matti Latvala  VW                   + 1m30.6s
 5.  Thierry Neuville    Qatar M-Sport Ford   + 5m06.4s
 6.  Juho Hanninen       Qatar M-Sport Ford   + 5m43.1s
 7.  Martin Prokop       Czech Ford          + 11m25.4s
 8.  Henning Solberg     M-Sport Ford        + 11m42.7s
 9.  Evgeny Novikov      Qatar M-Sport Ford  + 13m04.7s
10.  Yazeed Al Rahji     Yazeed Ford         + 16m27.0s

On a side note, Petter Solberg won the historic portion of the rally in a rwd Ford Escort MKII with his wife Pernilla as navigator and ...mechanic!

Sparkling wine making, the Petter Solberg way

oolalalalala....  looks like a stuck throttle to me.

WRC: Solberg loses his license ...

You got to love rallies: Petter Solberg was busted for speeding on a transition stage and local police confiscated his license. The only solution to finish the short final stage of Rally Sweden was to have co-driver Chriss Patterson get behind the wheel!

Patterson got to the end 51 seconds behind stage winner Ogier!



(pettersolberg.com Photo:AGENCE S PRESSE / ANDRE LAVADINHO)

end of post

hhhhallelujah wot a yump!

I'm going to go on a little WRC bender here....anyone mind? As I've said before, that Rally is not shown at all in the US is a scandal...

OK, this one is all about the commentary ... OK the jump was pretty impressive as well.



Rally Finland will scare even rally drivers...I think that's saying something.
Commentary is Dutch ( I think...correct me if I'm wrong) but the driver interviews are in English. Here is Mikko Hirvonen on the Ouninpohja stage:

Ever notice the there is a certain look to some rally drivers....kind of a bug eyed quasi psychotic thing going with the eyes... Gilles Panizzi, Hirvonen, and take a look at Petter Solberg...

Could it be that look comes from driving stages the Finns quaintly line with organic, recyclable guard rails? Here is Jan Kopecky in a Skoda.

Mikko Hirvonen...




Sebastian Loeb is philosophical...




Manfred Stohl is on a roll...



and finally some hi-lites...