Friday the 13th rally jump fail

Friday the 13th was not very kind to Per Erik Brynildsen  who stuffed his Ford Fiesta straight into a snowbank on SS5... ouch.



Friday the 13th was not kind to Sebastian Ogier either, His wipers failed then while fixing then he forgot to properly close his his bonnet which then flew open, breaking the windshield. Later then he slid off the road. He lost 40 seconds to Andreas Mikkelsen. Don't get too hopeful though, Today he's already within 5 seconds.

Today is big jump day at Colin's Crest. If you had WRC+ you could watch it live!



and this clip is just awesome at giving you the sense of speed..

Meanwhile, in Sweden...

Perhaps WRC should consider a special ballast reward for anyone named Sebastien...

Kubica had a very special coach for Rally Sweden

Ex F1 driver Robert Kubica had a very special coach giving him tip on the proper way to use studs and snow banks this week in Sweden.
WRC legend Marcus Grönholm sat in the passenger seat of Kubica's Ford Fiesta WRC as they rocketed on tree lined toboggan runs of the sub arctic forests.
Reports are Grönholm was properly impressed with Bobby K's speed.

Merry Christmas!

Cheers everyone and thanks for following Axis!

It's been ridiculously warm in NYC, 70 degrees on the shortest day of the year, what? The idea of a freezing day in a snowy scandinavian forest sounds mighty appealing so enjoy highlight from this year's Rally Sweden

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!

Rally Sweden: Flying Frenchies

Day two of Rally Sweden and it's still the battle of the Sebastiens, with Ogier in the VW Polo R WRC  leading Loeb in the Citroen by 30 seconds.   Can Loeb conquer the one rally he has not dominated in his incredible career in this his final run at it?

More highlights from the rally so far.



Colin's crest

Rally Sweden

...How it went is, shocker, Sebastian Loeb is leading after the first Special Stage. Rally Sweden is on of only four Loeb will take part of this season, others being Monte Carlo, Argentina and France. In fact, Sweden is one of the few rallies Loeb has not dominated in his career.

UPDATE: Perhaps Loeb's Swedish jinx are catching him out again, as of FRiday evening Ogier has caught him and gapped him by 10sSeconds

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

Oh Putain, it's a Fiesta in Sweden!

For the first time in what seems like forever, Citroens are not dominating a WRC event, well not yet anyway. Rally Sweden marks the debut of the new 1600cc formula and Ford has four cars in the top five spots after the first day.

Sebastien Loeb was on snowplow duty, having to sweep the course for everyone else, the other Sebatien, Ogier, had a little navigational issue, so it was four Fiestas up top after day one.





But don't count on the French team not to spoil the fiesta yet, Peter Solberg is still in the hunt despite a penalty. Loeb won a stage but a puncture put him quite a way down. Raikkonen has not crashed yet, Ken Block ended up in a snow bank and had to be dug out by fans and relegated to last in class. He did win an informal "longest jump" contest and tweeted about it though. Expect "Block hoons" headlines to pop up :)