WRC : ES1 : Victims already in Greece! ; Déjà des victimes en Grèce !

The long opening stage (47.70km) of the 2013 Acropolis Rally has produced plenty of early drama. Evgeny Novikov leads for Ford/Michelin, ahead of Citroën’s Dani Sordo and Volkswagen driver Jari-Matti Latvala. But Ostberg and Hirvonen both lost time, while the championship leader Ogier has stopped with a ‘technical problem’.

La longue première spéciale (47,70 km) du Rallye de l’Acropole 2013 a déjà fait des victimes : Ostberg et Hirvonen ont perdu du temps et le leader du championnat Sébastien Ogier s’est arrêté. Evgeny Novikov est leader sur sa Ford/Michelin devant Dani Sordo et Jari-Matti Latvala.

Very often, the organisers of world championship rounds provide competitors with a chance to find their marks. But not here. To compensate for its shorter format, and to be sure that the notoriously punishing rally lost none of its challenge, the Greeks have laid on an exceptionally tough opening day: a menu of just two stages, but one an awesome 47.70km in length, and the other to be contested at night. The first (‘Kineta-Pissia’) has already caused havoc among the expected leaders…

We found a spot about 25km from the start (and 22km from the finish!) and, frankly, were expecting to see Volkswagen’s Sébastien Ogier take advantage of his late running order to make his mark on the event. Wrong. Instead, it was his Ford rival Novikov who emerged from the mountains east of Corinth at the top of the order, his smooth style through our corner proving deceptively efficient.

As he passed in front of us, our stopwatch told us he was already 11 and 13 seconds faster than Citroën’s Mikko Hirvonen and Dani Sordo respectively. The stage’s second half saw him go even further clear to beat the Spaniard by more than 20 seconds (almost 0.5s/km!), while Hirvonen encountered serious trouble with his DS3 WRC’s steering, dropping almost six minutes and seriously comprising his chances of a second Acropolis win.

Latvala’s more sedate pace was rewarded with a footing on the provisional podium (+36.3s), despite a reported fuel pump problem. However, the test proved catastrophic for his Volkswagen team-mate Ogier who didn’t even reach our vantage point. It seems that his handbrake locked, and that terminally damaged the Polo R WRC’s differentials.

Ostberg (+3m16s) at least had the good fortune of reaching the Stop Control, despite one of his wheels shattering around it bolts. It meant he could stop to replace the offending rim.

Both Citroën and VW had ‘weather men’ on the stage, not to report that the sky was blue and the sun shining beautifully, but to evaluate how much of a problem dust is likely to be when competitors return to the same hills for tonight’s SS2. The Priority 1 drivers will benefit from a gap of four minutes between each car, but it looks as though that might be an unnecessary precaution. True, even with the strong wind blowing in from the nearby Mediterranean, the dust didn’t clear immediately where we were standing on SS1. Instead, it whipped round in circles for maybe a minute, but then magically cleared. That said, some drivers reported problems with visibility..

Hopefully, the phenomenon won’t have an influence on the results as the young drivers face the rare pleasure of driving competitively on dirt in the dark later this evening. There could well be more changes…

One of this afternoon’s more notable performances was produced by ex-F1 star Robert Kubica who claimed the ninth best time in his diminutive Citroën DS3 RRC, despite losing an estimated 30 seconds stuck behind the preceding car…

Pour compenser le format compact et conserver l’identité du Rallye de Grèce, les organisateurs ont programmé un début de rallye particulièrement corsé. L’ES1 (47,70 km) a déjà offert son lot de surprises, en attendant l’ES2 à disputer de nuit.

Nous étions dans l’ES1 à 25 km du départ – quasiment au milieu – et franchement, on s’attendait à voir la Volkswagen/Michelin de Sébastien Ogier avec une belle avance après cette spéciale, en partie grâce à sa bonne position sur la route. Tout faux. C’est la Ford Fiesta RS WRC de Novikov qui émerge en tête, malgré un passage très « coolé » là où nous étions.

Devant nous, le Russe était déjà 11 à 13 secondes plus rapide que les Citroën de Mikko Hirvonen et de Dani Sordo. Evgeny a encore augmenté son avance en seconde partie de spéciale pour conclure avec 20 secondes d’avance sur l’Espagnol, alors qu’Hirvonen était victime d’un souci de direction (crémaillère). Le Finlandais a perdu pratiquement six minutes.

Jari-Matti Latvala est 3^e au classement provisoire malgré un problème de pompe à essence ayant causé un tout-droit. C’est le même mal qui serait à l’origine de l’abandon de Sébastien Ogier en début de spéciale. De son côté, Mads Ostberg a perdu plus de 3 minutes après avoir cassé une jante sur une marche en béton et changé sa roue.

Citroën et VW avaient plusieurs hommes météo dans cette spéciale, non pas pour annoncer les risques de pluie, mais pour évaluer le niveau de visibilité après le passage des autos. L’ES2 empruntera les 26 premiers kilomètres de l’ES1. Malgré le fort vent venant de la mer, la poussière ne s’évacue pas immédiatement après chaque auto. Elle tourbillonne pendant environ une minute avant de se dissiper. Mais de nuit, les concurrents s’élanceront toutes les quatre minutes.

En WRC-2, Robert Kubica a signé le meilleur temps (et le 9e au général) malgré avoir été gêné par la poussière d’un concurrent parti devant lui.

2013 Mugello: Jorge Lorenzo vs Valentino Rossi in FP2 - Marquez suffers huge crash

from TWOWHEELSBLOG

For MotoGP’s second free practice at Mugello the track had a nice dry line and lap times dropped immediately showing the much improved track conditions, even if they were still a little more than 1 second off of Dani Pedrosa’s 2012 record of 1′47.284, but last year’s race was held in mid July and with completely different weather conditions.

Valentino Rossi came out of his garage for the 45 minute session with a completely different approach than usual and did three long runs, constantly improving and lowering his lap times with each lap and in every run with an impressive pace in the high 1.47s. The Italian held the top of the timesheets for most of the session and then ended up second after team mate Jorge Lorenzo pipped him with his last final flying lap by just 0.034s.

Third fastest was another Yamaha rider, Cal Crutchlow who put in one of his usual fast laps and ended up +0.297 from his factory counterparts. Following the Yamaha trio was Ducati’s Nicky Hayden in fourth and seven tenths adrift and a mere 0.006s ahead of Dani Pedrosa.

Marc Marquez had a horrific looking crash half way through the session. The Repsol Honda rookie was starting the first of his fast laps when his RC213V baulked at the end of the straight at the braking point at turn 1(San Donato hairpin) and his foot caught on the right side of his bike and dragged him through the grass at over 250-300km as his Honda scraped against barriers and then dumped him in the gravel trap and leaving him stunned and bent over. Dr. Costa’s preliminary report said that Marquez hit his chin, suffered a neck sprain along with numerous bruises. Marquez ended up 14th.

Andrea Iannone hitched a couple of tows and that let him post the 6th fastest time. There were some doubts if Andrea Dovizioso could ride this session after hurting his neck during a crash in FP1, but the Ducati rider after undergoing some treatment in the Clinica Mobile was back on track and was 7th.

Stefan Bradl was 8th, while Randy de Puniet put his ART into an excellent 9th, while Michele Pirro and his Ducati ‘laboratory bike’ closed out the top ten.

Bradley Smith crashed at the Savelli and he was reported to have a suspected left arm injury and that left him down in 13th, but still ahead of returnee Ben Spies who was 16th and 2.7 seconds from Lorenzo.

2013 MotoGP Mugello FP2 results:

01- Jorge Lorenzo – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – 1’48.375
02- Valentino Rossi – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 0.034
03- Cal Crutchlow – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 0.297
04- Nicky Hayden – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 1.002
05- Dani Pedrosa – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – + 1.008
06- Andrea Iannone – Energy T.I. Pramac Racing – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 1.092
07- Andrea Dovizioso – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 1.168
08- Stefan Bradl – LCR Honda MotoGP – Honda RC213V – + 1.220
09- Randy De Puniet – Power Electronics Aspar – ART GP13 – + 1.224 (CRT)
10- Michele Pirro – Ducati Test Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 1.274

Moto GP ; Marc Marquez dominates a damp and suprising FP1 at Mugello

The opening practice at the one of the most beautiful and difficult circuits on the MotoGP calendar, the Mugello, but unfortunately, but it was more than the expected, the weather was cold, damp and very cloudy - and this is the weather that Italy has had for almost the entire month of May.

The Italian track was still damp yesterday’s rain showers and the riders were forced to go out on hard rain tires on the half and half conditions, with the tires showing some wear and tire after four or five laps, but with 15 minutes left in the session Yonny Hernandez was the first rider to go out on slicks .

The CRT rider immediately topped the charts until Marc Marquez hit the track with slicks and immediately gave it 110%, shaving off more than one second and then lowered his lap times again to finish on top with a best lap of 1′54.797 and then binned his Honda without consequences when he touch the damp grass at the Borgo San Lorenzo.

The session saw some suprising results, which could be very important if the next two practice sessions should be fully wet and could see a number of CRT riders end up directly in QP2 and top riders having to take part in QP1.

Ducati’s wildcard rider Michele Pirro was second fastest and a little less than four tenths from Marquez, followed by LCR’s Stefan Bradl and CRT rider Karel Abraham.

Hernandez ended up fifth, while Tech3 rookie Bradley Smith was sixth and ahead of Nicky Hayden. Le Mans winner and standings leader Dani Pedrosa was 8th and 1.7 seconds from his team mate.

A frustrated Cal Crutchlow who wants a factory spec contract and let everyone know it during yesterday’s pre-event press conference, threatening to quit if Moto2 rider Pol Espargaro, who is definitely on Yamaha’s radar, is given a works deal over him was behind Pedrosa and ahead of Ben Spies, who has finally returned to action after missing the last two GPs following his pec muscle strain during the Austin GP that also aggravated his shoulder issues.

Jorge Lorenzo was only 14th and he sat out the final minutes of the session. Andrea Dovizioso lost the front of his Ducati at turn 1 in the final minutes and he was 15th. Valentino Rossi was just 19th and more than six tenths adrift, and when he was out on his last two laps on slicks he had Dovizioso crash in front of him and then Marquez. His decision to go out only in the final minutes with slicks could cost him dearly.

Danilo Petrucci also crashed just a minute after Dovizioso showing how tricky the conditions were.

2013 MotoGP Mugello FP1 results:

01- Marc Marquez – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – 1’54.797
02- Michele Pirro – Ducati Test Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 0.398
03- Stefan Bradl – LCR Honda MotoGP – Honda RC213V – + 0.491
04- Karel Abraham – Cardion AB Motoracing – ART GP13 – + 1.077
05- Yonny Hernandez – Paul Bird Motorsport – ART GP13 – + 1.110
06- Bradley Smith – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 1.184
07- Nicky Hayden – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 1.194
08- Dani Pedrosa – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – + 1.737
09- Cal Crutchlow – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 2.187
10- Ben Spies – Ignite Pramac Racing – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 2.248

from TWoWHEELSBLOG

Shakedown - 2013 WRC Acropolis Rally of Greece

Watch the first footage from Acropolis Rally of Greec with shakedown's action. Enjoy !!