The first round of the 2008 season! Shakedown testing times http://www.acm.mc/ramc/ramc_main.php?pa ... n_2008.php

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Well what a surprise, Loeb fastest!

I see Willyj is our WRC correspondent yet again this year.

Looking foward to the rally, Eurosport will be showing highlights after each day and the final stage live.

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Not surprising is that Suzuki are not the quickest.
What is a shock is how slow they are ops:

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Yes Suzuki are very slow, not really surprising at this early stage of development for the SX4.

I think gradually, they will get faster, but the question is by how much. They could be like Skoda were, fast but could never challenge for the championship.

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Actually Sordo was fastest 3 tenths ahead of Loeb:

1. Daniel Sordo Citroen Total WRT C4 WRC 2mins 25.2secs M
2. Sebastien Loeb Citroen Total WRT C4 WRC 2mins 25.5secs M
3. Petter Solberg Subaru WRT Impreza WRC 2007 2mins 26.2secs M
4. Francois Duval Stobart Ford Focus WRC 07 2mins 26.3secs M
5. Chris Atkinson Subaru WRT Impreza WRC 2007 2mins 27.0secs M
6. Mikko Hirvonen BP Ford Focus RS WRC 07 2mins 27.2secs M
7. Jari-Matti Latvala BP Ford Focus RS WRC 07 2mins 27.9secs M
8. Gigi Galli Stobart Ford Focus WRC 07 2mins 28.2secs M
9. Matthew Wilson Stobart Ford Focus WRC 07 2mins 29.6secs
10. Henning Solberg Stobart Ford Focus WRC 07 2mins 30.1secs
11. Khalid Al-Qassimi BP Ford Focus RS WRC 07 2mins 33.4secs
12. Toni Gardemeister Suzuki WRT SX4 WRC 2mins 34.9secs M
13. Conrad Rautenbach Citroen Xsara WRC 2mins 35.6secs
14. Jean-Marie Cuoq Peugeot 307 WRC 2mins 40.3secs
15. P-G Andersson Suzuki WRT SX4 WRC 2mins 42.5secs M

Source: crash.net

Not bad from the Subarus but Hirvonen and Latvala surprise me. I would have expected them to be about equal to the Citroens.

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22Lewis Hamilton
23Heikki Kovalainen
Pedro de la Rosa
Gary Paffett

Oh right, well if that's the case great stuff, I'd like Sordo to really pressure Loeb this year...

Ford won't win the title this year, they will miss Gronholm too much...

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Blimey
With all these Vodafone McLaren Mercedes sigs I thought sav was talking to himself for a minute ops:

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Speed is life

It's good to have so many VMM banners on one page.
Scares off the anti-McLaren fans.

Anyway back on topic, after the last rally last season it seemed to me that Hirvonen was at least Grönholm's equal and would have no problem challenging for the title. Anyway, it would be foolish to predict anything from these shakedown times especially since it's Monte and with the new tyres a driver can have a 1 hour lead but a single puncture will ruin it all...

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22Lewis Hamilton
23Heikki Kovalainen
Pedro de la Rosa
Gary Paffett

:lolbis: :lolbis: :lolbis:

I agree with MclarenFan, its superb to have all these VMM banners, scares off all the anti-Mclaren fans.

The new tyre rules, they could shake things up. However, I have a feeling that Loeb will adapt the fastest and run away with the championship...

I hope I am proved wrong!

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SLOW THOSE BLOODY CITROENS DOWN Ok, I knew Loeb would dominate, but this is just embarrassing!

Hopefully it will rain at random times during the some of the rallies, because then there could be a weird (but good ) result, because Loeb used to always seem to find the right tyre choice over Gronholm in the past, so hopefully the new rules will change a few results.

Certainly the drivers will be faced with whole new challenge, of only allowing to use one tyre compond per rally. So if you start with a soft tyre, thats what you have all weekend!

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Tyres are going to be the great leveller this season. One puncture could change the face of a rally. Several could do for the championship.

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Reading an article on Crash.net about the puncture's, some drivers are saying you won't be able to cut corners aggressively like they could last year with the BF's. So defintely the drivers will have to watch out...

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Loeb is leading the rally: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/64843

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Thursday night is not a good time to start a WRC Rally for Willyj Back on the ball this morning.
Leg 1 top 10
1.S. LOEB A8 00:00:00.0 00:00:00.0
2.D. SORDO A8 00:00:12.7 00:00:12.7
3.M. HIRVONEN A8 00:00:31.3 00:00:44.0
4.C. ATKINSON A8 00:00:14.6 00:00:58.6
5.F. DUVAL A8 00:00:14.9 00:01:13.5
6.P. SOLBERG A8 00:00:01.0 00:01:14.5
7.G. GALLI A8 00:00:11.6 00:01:26.1
8.T. GARDEMEISTERA8 00:00:27.0 00:01:53.1
9.J. Marie CUOQ A8 00:00:16.1 00:02:09.2
10.F. ROMEYER A8 00:00:41.5 00:02:50.7

No surprises there except Latvala down in 18th

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