Issue 34, January 2016

Monte Carlo

Tommi Makinen

Road to China

The New and improved BRC / Rally America’s Sno*Drift Rally / Loudon’s 16 reasons to love WRC 2016

GogieR

dani sordo pushed the new generation i20 to the maxImage: Bas Romeny

he even seemed to be flying in the nightImage: Bas Romeny

meeke’s maximum attack led

to a great fight with ogierImage: Bas Romeny

they almost look like toys... most of them probably areImage: Bas Romeny

Rally-eMag January 2016 / Contents

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Who made it?

Publisher: Rally-eMag

Words: Steven van Veenendaal, Harry van Veenendaal, Tara Hurlin.

Photography: Bas Romeny, Erik van ‘t Land

Who helped?

Logo design: Minse Blom

Backcover artwork: Dam Charles

Distribution: Issuu.com

Who we thank!

PR Photography from: Peugeot Sport, Hyundai Mo-torsport, Citroen Racing, FIA ERC, Volkswagen Motorsport, M-Sport, Red Bull Media Pool.

How to reach us?

Email: info@rally-emag.comWeb: www.rally-emag.comFacebook: www.facebook.com/emagrallyTwitter: @emagrallyIssuu: www.issuu.com/rally-emag

interviewtommi makinenOn building a WRC team

Page 28

FeaturemaxrallyLoudon’s 16 reasons to love WRC 2016

Page 32

WRCrallye monte carloAnother season, another VW win Page 13

Featurethe road to chinaOliver Ciesla’s view

Page 36

This month

rally americasno*drift rallyRally racing turns to snow for Sno*Drift 2016

Page 40

Rally-eMag / Headlines

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Chris Ingram joins Opel Motorsport in bid for ERC Junior glory

After an up and down 2015 season, with an ERC Junior class win at Rallye Acores but retirements on the final three rounds of the championship, Chris Ingram makes the switch from Peugeot UK to Opel Motorsport.The Germans were in top form last year when Emil Bergkvist claimed the ERC title for them while Marijan Griebel snatched third. Berg-kvist is leaving the team this year and Ingram picks up the challenge to replace the tal-ented Swede. His strong performances early last season give every reason to believe he will do just that.Ingram will be partnered by a new co-driver, Katrin Becker. The 34-year old is an experi-enced co-driver who guided Michael Böhm to two Austrian titles. Image: PR

Unusual warm weather conditions mean that the opening round of the ERC, Rally Liepaja has had to be postponed. The rally normally features fast snow covered forest tracks, but rain and above freez-ing level temperatures caused the existing snow to melt away, with no fresh frozen goodness to re-plenish the stock. Jean-Baptiste Ley, the ERC Co-ordinator, said: “Safety is always the number one concern and with safety very much in mind the organisers were left with no alternative other than to postpone Rally Liepāja until lat-er in the year.” The ERC will now start with the Rally Islas Canari-as from 10-12 March.

With high hopes of succes, Ab-dulaziz Al-Kuwari will return to the WRC2, starting his cam-paign in Mexico. Having previ-ously driven a Ford Fiesta, Al-Ku-wari will switch to a Sokda Fabia R5 for 2016. Although the new car will take some getting used to, Al-Kuwari is full of confidence: “We have been one of the most con-sistent WRC2 participants in the past two years, I almost finished every rally and took important vic-tories and podiums.This year it will be more difficult thanks to a lot more factory drivers entering the championship. Regardless, we will aim for victories and the title.”

Debut test for Hyundai New Genera-tion i20 R5

Last week Hyundai test and develop-ment driver Kevin Abbring went to south-ern France to test the new R5 version of the New Gen i20. Responsible for the development and the testing of the new car is the freshly appointed Hyundai Mo-torsport Customer Project Manager An-drea Adamo. “The first tests”, he said. “are focussed on reliability, so that we can produce a problem free car for our future customers.” Image: PR

Headlines

Headlines

Prokop back in WRC

Just after Monte Carlo we read a tweet from the Check organiza-tion iSport indicating Martin Prokop will return in the WRC. The

Check rally pilot said he could not imagine not being in the WRC. He will start his season in Mexico and continue in Argentina.

“I will then return to Europe, but I don’t know yet what my pro-gramme will be. I have to find a balance between my rally ambi-

tions and the success of our family business Jipocar.

Hirvonen test driver for Toyota

Tommi Mäkinnen already hinted at a role in the development of the new Toyota WRC for Hirvonen would be possible and now it was officially announced that the Finnish former WRC driver will be the test driver for the new car that will be ready for testing this spring. We wonder who will be his co-pilot during the test sessions as his former co-driver Jarmo Lehtinen has recently been appointed Sporting Director of the Toyota GAZOO Racing Team.

After a one-year absence the British Rally Championship returns in 2016 and it is looking to be one of the most exciting and competitive series around this year. Here is the key info to get you up to speed before it all kicks off with the Mid Wales Stages rally on March 5th.

Mid Wales StagesMarch 5 -6, Newtown

Circuit of IrelandApril 8-9, Belfast

RSAC Scottish RallyJune 25, Dumfries

Ulster RallyAugust 19-20, Derry/Londonderry

Nicky Grist StagesJuly 9-10, Builth Wells

Rally Isle of ManSeptember 15-17, Douglas

Pirelli Carlisle RallyApril 30 May 1, Carlisle

30 60Mins onChanel 4per event

Mins onBT Sportper event

Selected entries:

Elfyn Evans - Ford Fiesta R5Max Vatanen - Ford Fiesta R5Tom Cave - Ford Fiesta R5Fredrik Ahlin - Ford Fiesta R5Marty McCormack - Skoda Fabia S2000James Slaughter - Ford Fiesta R5Jamie Anderson - Ford Fiesta R5Euan Thorburn - Peugeot 208 T16Ollie Mellors - Proton Satria Neo S2000Neil Simpson - Skoda Fabia R5Rhys Yates - Ford Fiesta R5Sam Moffett - Ford Fiesta R5Josh Moffett - Ford Fiesta R5Damian Cole – Ford Fiesta S2000Desi Henry – Skoda Fabia R5Hugh Hunter – Ford Fiesta R5Tomas Davies – Ford Fiesta R5

Eligible classes

BRC 1FIA R5, S2000, RRC, Group R4 (VR4)

BRC 2FIA Grp N and for ASN homologation extended Grp N cars over 2000cc

BRC 3 FIA R3 cars

BRC 4 - FIA R2 Cars for drivers that aren’t eligi-ble for the Junior BRC

BRC 5 FIA R1 Cars

BRC RGT FIA RGT Cars

Junior BRC FIA R2 Cars for drivers under the age of 26National Rally Cup All cars with a current MSA Rally Car Log Book. The same events as the BRC, but no recce on gravel events.

HeadlinesRally-eMag / Headlines

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Dutch WRC photographer Erik van ‘t Land releases his new calendar.The best action from the WRC from all over the world in 12 pages.

You can order it now! €15 or two for €25 (excl. shipping).Email info@rallypicture.nl for more info.

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Rally-eMagYour monthly dose of WRC reports, news and of course the best images of the most exciting sport on the planet.

Rallye Monte Carlo / Overview

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Based in: Gap/Monte Carlo

Date: 19-24/01/16

Number of stages: 16

Shortest stage: Col de l’Orme – Saint Laurent , 12.07 km

Longest stage: Larder et Valenca – Faye 51.55 km

Total stage distance: 378 km

Surface: Asphalt

Rallye monte carlo

Image: Bas Romeny

Rallye Monte Carlo / Review

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Another season, another VW win…

The traditional WRC opener, Rallye Monte Carlo, kicked off the 2016 season in style. The outcome of this first rally is not a big surprise, Volkswagen dominated, Citroën fast but unlucky. Both M-Sport and Hyundai still had teething prob-lems with respectively the new driver line-up and a completely new car. Still it was an interesting event with everything you expect from this iconic rally.

Words: Harry van VeenendaalImages: Bas Romeny

We start againA beautiful blue sky, nice sunshine and moder-ate temperatures welcomed all participants to the opening event on the Casino square. Like last year the WRC Promoter had organized an event to celebrate the beginning of the new sea-son. In the famous ‘Salle Empire’ inside the Hôtel de Paris we found a variety of people from the world of rallying and other sports and some ce-lebrities who would be baptized in the art of rally-ing by experiencing a co-drive in one of the real World Rally Cars parked on the Casino Square. A very useful event where in a relaxed atmosphere you can meet quite a few interesting people that mostly are quite willing tot talk to you, as you will see from quite a few interviews in this and follow-ing issues of Rally-eMag. But of course we did not come to Monte Carlo just for this. We wanted

to see some action and experience who will be on top this year and if that could be anyone else than Sebastien Ogier.

Ogier’s leagueThis year’s reigning champion made it very clear: there is a special league ‘the Ogier league’ and ‘a league for the others’. However ‘the other league’ led by Kris Meeke made live quite dif-ficult for Ogier. It was Kris Meeke who drew first blood. By blitzing the second stage of the Monte Carlo rally and outpacing early leader Sebastien Ogier by 11 seconds, Kris Meeke and Paul Na-gle took a seven second overnight lead on the inauguration event of the 2016 season. Andreas Mikkelsen quickly adjusts to new co-driver An-ders Jaeger and finishes on the last virtual po-dium step. By then Jari-Matti Latvala already lost

44 seconds by sliding onto a rock.

Day two: the battle continues... Day two starts with a bright blue sky again. The roads seem dry but temperatures in the early morning are still quite close to, or under zero. On the very first stage of today this already results in offs for Robert Kubica and Hayden Paddon. They both misjudge a shadowy stretch of road where grip levels suddenly drop drastically. Meters from each other they end up beside the road. Paddon can restart tomorrow, but for Ku-bica it is game over as his Fiesta is too heavily damaged. To add to his bad luck, Elfyn Evans, who went wide on the same ice spot as Kubica, crashes into the rear of his stricken Fiesta and pushes the car just over the rim into the tree that kept the car for form dropping further.

Sunshine and the glitter and glamour of Monte Carlo provided a stark contrast to the gruelling conditions the crews would face in the Alps.

Kris Meeke gave Sebastien Ogier a run for his money and snatched the lead after the opening night.

Rallye Monte Carlo / Review

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The R5 can continue without much dam-age or time loss. Meanwhile in the top a fierce battle is being fought. Meeke and Ogier both retake the lead several times. At the penultimate stage Meeke holds a slender 0.7-second lead. But then Ogier really steps on it and regains the lead. But the margin for the Satur-day is not huge, just under ten seconds. The next battle was between teammates Latvala and Mikkelsen. The Norwegian seemed to be faster but had a spin at the end of the day, which caused him swapping places with Jari-Matti Latvala. Though Neuville was not feeling com-pletely confident with the set up of his New Generation i20, he still was running quite well and was in fifth, followed by Østberg who had to come to grips with the both his new car and the new Nor-wegian pacenotes brought to him by Ola Fløene. ‘Basically the car is about the same, but in two years time a lot has changed, so I need some time adjust-ing, but the car does feel good.’ Next on the leader board was Dani Sordo. He too was complaining about set up issues in his Hyundai. Apparently the completely new car still needs some fine-tuning.

Tyre gambles‘We’re in Monte Carlo,’ Mikkelsen must have thought. ‘So I will do some gam-bling’. He did not mean the famous Ca-sino in his home town’s Casino Square where he started the rally earlier this week. He meant tyre choice. So he chose different tyres then his colleagues. On the first stage of the day the marathon stage from Ladier-et-Valença to Faye it his cost him almost forty seconds.

Top: Ever so slowly Robert Kubica went on the ice, still it proved too fast. He slid off on stage three and to add insult to injury, Elfyn Evans slid wide in the same corner and pushed Kubica even further down the ditch into the trees. It’s been another disappointing event for the quick Pole who is still scrambling to find budget for the remainder of the season. Sweden is definitely off, the rest of the year still a big questionmark.

Middle: As a true Monagask would, Mikkelsen took a couple of gambles with his tyre choices.

Bottom: Kris Meeke is crowd favourite number one. He is committed on every corner, sometimes event a bit too much...

But his mixture of studded and super soft compound tyres paid diffident on the next stage, from St. Leger Les Mélèzes to La Batie Neuve. It be-gins on a road next to a skiing slope where small kids learn the noble art of skiing. The road changing form treacherously dry to completely snow-covered even crossing the ski slopes of Ancelles. Here Mikkelsen grabs just over forty seconds. This loop is done twice and then the drivers set off for Monaco again but first they had to tackle the famous Sisteron – Thoard stage. But on the trip to Monaco we don’t find Latvala nor do we find Kris Meeke. Latvala slides off the road going through a ditch and after hitting a spectator (see box on this page) finds his route again only to find there is too much damage to continue. Kris Meeke hits a rock somewhere of his path. It destroys his sump guard and breaks his gearbox. No luck for

the fast Citroën driver who flavoured the rally up till now. Happy faces at Hyundai though, Neuville, Paddon and Sordo were fastest on the ski slope stage and Neuville and Sordo repeated that on the Sisteron stage. It promoted Neuville to third place and Sordo to seventh.

Volkswagen finaleOn the last day Volkswagen won all the stages. Ogier won both runs of the Col de L’Orme - St Laurent stage, the second run being the PowerStage, Mikkelsen won the stage in from La Bollène Vesubie to Peira Cava. This is a partly new stage that crossed the Col de Turini but leaving the col in a different way than other years. So the end is clear Volkswagen wins. Ogier leads the driver’s championship and the team leads the manufacturers championship. However they have to share first spot with Hyundai!

It must have been hard to swallow for Elfyn Evans when M-Sport manager Malcolm Wilson told him he would be demoted from M-Sport’s WRC squad to a program in the WRC-2 and BRC. Rather than pout about it, Evans ac-cepted the challenge and showed everyone what he is capable of in Monte Carlo. On the opening stage he lost 30 seconds with a puncture, but from then on it was utter dominance. He won just about every stage he tried, and in the end he held a 2-min-ute lead over Esapekka Lappi (who

is no bad driver himself). Oh and he finished eighth overall...

Maybe it was successful amateur psychology by Malcolm Wilson, maybe it’s to early to tell, but either way Elfyn showed his skill. Wilson had every reason to smile; not only did his young driver bounce back from disappointment with a very strong performance, the new evolution of the Fiesta proved very capable of beating its Czech and French rivals.

Evans shows his skills, Fiesta R5 Evo up to speed

Latvala on the lineJari Matti Latvala was the focal point of the Monte’s stewards’ meeting Satur-day night after the Finn hit a spectator during an off on stage 11. WRC TV Reporter Julian Porter stated that at the finish line Latvala asked him ‘When we went off, we hit a spectator, we did not him hard, but can you pleas check if he is ok?”

“Can you go and confirm with the marshals that I haven’t hit anybody.” The reason was that after having cooled down after the stage, he felt that he might have hit someone.

After reviewing video evidence of the event the stewards ruled that it was hard to believe that neither driver nor co-driver had realized that they had hit a spectator as at the moment of impact the visibility wasn’t that bad and the body could clearly be seen on the bonnet of the car. Latvala replied that during such an impact there is a lot of up and down movement of the head, preventing the crew from looking at of the window in a straight line.Concluding on all above the stewards deem it implausible that the crew did not even con-sider that they had hit a spec-tator. At such an occasion it would have been the obligation of the crew to stop and check if any spectators were affected by the incident. As Latvala and Anttila did not do so, they were penalized with a € 5000 fine and a conditional suspen-sion of one WRC event that will come into effect immediately if Latvala commits a similar in-fringement of the rules during the 2016 WRC season.

As is usual in such cases, the stewards summoned the driver and team princi-pal (in this case Latvala, Jost Capito and team manager Sven Smeets) for a hearing on the matter. Latvala started his state-ment by giving his apologies for the in-cident, before proceeding on the events as he had experienced them. During the off he hit a water channel and the water boosting up obstructed his view. It was only when the visibility came back that he saw people jumping to the side and at the same time he saw the possibility where he could get back onto the road. He added that he never thought having hit some-one. He then added that he was informed that he had hit a spectator, although he remained vague about who had informed him. When presented with the statement given by Julian Porter, Latvala stated that those were not his words and that he had instead asked Porter

Round-upRallye Monte Carlo / Round-up

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What do you do if you have the best car, the best drivers and the best team? You stick with it. So that’s what Volkswagen did, they’re a win-ning team, so no need for big changes. Still there were some changes. Some minor technical things to the car to start with. But very shortly be-fore the start of the season news surfaced about the co-driver change with Andreas Mikkelsen and about the job swap of Jost Capito. Capito will go to Formula 1, but as promised he was present in Monte Carlo. As he said he will first look for a new team principal and until then he will be present at rallies. And looking at Capito during the Monte weekend we have the feeling he is still quite happy. But then again that is one of his major assets. He can create a relaxed atmosphere and at the same make clear who is the boss. It’s a formula that obviously seems to work. Under his tenure VW has been the dominant party in the WRC So they’ll be looking long and hard to find someone to fill those impressive shoes.

The biggest news in the Ogier camp was the fact he and his wife ex-

pect their first baby, apart from that it was all business as usual. Ogier wants to win everything but certainly the Monte is one of the events he hates to NOT win. He was born only minutes away from the service park and rally HQ and so he considers this to be his home event. To add some flavour to his fight this year Kris Meeke did not surrender but really put up a fight. But Ogier showed how you could help lady luck a little. You have to go (very) fast when it is possible and to slow down when necessary. Telemetry in the WRC+ video’s showed Ogier some-times slowed down to 30 or less kilometres per hour when the tricky conditions demanded it. He tiptoed through the snow-covered roads of Ancelle where others kept the gas down. The numbers of cars we saw slip and slide through these conditions were numerous, but not the Volkswagen proudly bearing number 1. You can’t blame him for trying but Kris Meeke was just a bit unlucky and handed victory to Ogier. Giv-ing Ogier the opportunity to tell the world he was happy both with his victory here but also by the fact that his wife Andrea is pregnant.

Volkswagen Motorsport

We don’t hope it is a sign for things to come but this simply was not a Latvala event. At first he stayed behind when he saw Ogier and Meeke battling it out. His aim for this rally was different from that of Meeke’s. He wanted to lay a firm foundation for a real challenge for the championship. He also knew this was not the rally to attack his biggest contender Ogier. So he just stayed put, apart from a small incident in stage 2 where he slid off the road. He managed to shake off Mikkelsen and settled for sec-ond. But on the second pass of ‘the long one’, Lardier et Valenca - Faye things went drastically wrong. He went off and damaged his car beyond immediate repair. As we showed in the box in our rally report, it was an expensive off. But apart from the € 5000 fine his ego got a serious blow too. He did not make it to the finish so he did not earn a single champion-ship point but, as far as we can judge, it is very unlike ‘nice guy Latvala’ to leave the site of an accident where spectators are concerned. We feel he was more affected by the fact this happened to him, then by the con-viction of the rally authorities.

For Andreas Mikkelsen this was an exciting rally. Of course he had al-ways wanted to compete with Anders Jaeger at his side. But team man-agement had also wanted Jaeger to mature somewhere else until the 2017 season. Now Mikkelsen and Jaeger had to show they were ready for it. The atmosphere in the car seemed to be good. With Mikkelsen teas-ing his friend: “Hey Anders, since you left Ole Christian (Veiby, his former driver, now co-driven by Jonas Andersson, who used to be in Østberg hot seat; ed.) he won all stages”. Jaeger did not say very much but the next stage they drove a scratch, making Jaeger the youngest co-driver from the competitors now driving to win a special stage. But this win was perhaps more due to a risky gamble on Mikkelsen’s side. He had used Michelin studs and on the snow covered ski slopes of stage 10 this gave him so much grip that Ogier lost just under 44 seconds on a 17K stage! It was not enough to really challenge the master but at least he tried and overall second in your first drive with a new co-driver on this level shows what he is capable of. Can he really beat Latvala this season?

Rallye Monte Carlo / Round-up

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Hyundai Motorsport All eyes were on Hyundai this weekend as they were the ones who had a completely new car. Second reason being Thierry Neu-ville who before the rally said he was back on track. Initially Neuville and Sordo both were complaining of the poor set up. Team manage-ment confided by saying their pre event tests were in completely dif-ferent circumstances with more snow. During the nearly complete-ly dry rally the setup therefore was not optimal. But in the end the New Generation i20 performed well. The shared leader position in the constructor’s championship was an added bonus. But it was achieved by cumulating the re-sults of both Neuville and Sordo whereas Ogier collected 28 points on his own.

We’re glad to see Thierry Neuville seems to be, as he said himself, back on track. Of course the poor set up hampered him too, but once that had been settled the Belgian seemed to do well. This resulted in a third step on the po-dium. “This is a very nice achieve-ment for the team, he said. But we feel that it was at least as good for the driver himself. We hope he found his own self again and see him perform again as in his Ford season.

There was a great burden on the shoulders of Dani Sordo. The team nominated him as number one driver and the Spaniard felt that especially in Monte Carlo he had to deliver. So during the first one and a half day we saw a sombre Sordo complaining about his car and the lack of balance in it. It was clear he was not a happy man. But once the set up issues had been dealt with he really started to perform. He was third quickest on stage 12 and completed the rally with two runner up positions on stage 13 and on the PowerStage giving him two bonus points. We hope this is an indication of the potential of both driver and car!

Hayden Paddon still had the ‘old’ i20, as there was not a new chas-sis ready for him. Still he jumped from the starting line as if this was not his first Monte. On Thursday night he came to Gap in fifth spot. But on the next day it was all over when he skidded on a tricky patch of ice. New regulations make it very difficult to get a real result if you leave the rally in such an early stage of the day. But he did come back and enjoyed a few days of high speed testing even resulting in a runner up time on the snow covered stage over the Ancelle skislope.

M-Sport boss Malcolm Wilson can be happy with his achievements in Monte Carlo. He did quite a gamble by completely changing his team. But it mostly paid out, though he had perhaps wanted a somewhat longer stint for new re-cruit Camilli.

Before the rally it did not seem to be an easy rally for Mads Østberg. Though he had driven a Fiesta be-fore he did not remember much of it anymore. ‘Basically it is of course the same car,’ he confided to us during the season’s open-ing in Monte Carlo. “But a lot has changed and I have to get used to the different driving you need with this car.” At the same event we spoke to his new co-driver Ola Fløene. “When they first called me I had to think it over, but rallying is my life and I knew very well that my VW contract was to expire in 2017. That had always been clear so no hard feelings but Mads of-fered me to be in a rally car for five more years. So added to the fact I know the family very well (I have even driven with Mads’s fa-ther) I did not have to think very much longer so I agreed to be his co-driver. Right from the start they made me feel at home and I re-ally feel part of the family”. Though PR obligations needed him some-where else he could hardly stop

talking about his new role. His smiles clearly indicated he was quite happy with this swap. In the end it paid dividend as the par-ing in their first outing for the team ended in fourth. Would this be the perfect match Østberg-Fløene-Fi-esta WRC?

Malcolm was clear about Eric Camilli: “He made a schoolboy er-ror, but he won’t make the same mistake again, so that’s good”. The Frenchman started with some gearbox issues. But when they were solved he did well even scor-ing a fifth time on the second stage of day two. But then he made his schoolboy mistake. The patch of ice that tricked out Kubica, Pad-don and Evans during the first run also tricked the Frenchman but this was during the second run, so there must have been an ex-clamation mark somewhere in his notes but apparently he missed it. He could contemplate his mis-take during the rest of the rally as the impact affected his roll cage in such a way, he couldn’t restart anymore

As we already said in our rally re-port Wilson will be quite happy with Elfyn Evan’s performance, so in the end the scale should cer-tainly be positive for M-Sport.

M-Sport World Rally Team

Rallye Monte Carlo / Round-up

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Abu Dhabi World Rally Team

No doubt the price for most disappointed team of the weekend goes to this team. Deprived from the official Citroën status they just want-ed to drive solidly. But Kris Meeke had another idea. He was in a very good form and was challenging Ogier on his own turf. That is quite an achievement, as not only did he take the lead but also, once Ogier had fought back, Meeke again took the lead. Ogier seemed to like it and really put up a fight until Meeke’s misery. A hidden rock took his sump guard and broke his gearbox. Game over!

Stéphane Lefebvre added a more positive note to this year’s Monte for Citroën. He proved why he is on the wanted list for Citroën’s fu-ture challenge in WRC. He started quietly, getting used to his new co-driver Gabin Moreau. On the last day he seemed to have found his rhythm. On the ‘new’ Turini stage he was third quickest. And he really got the taste of it almost repeating this result on the Power-Stage but Mikkelsen was just a tiny bit faster. But fifth place was a good achievement for the young Frenchman.

Drive DMack World RallyteamThe Drive DMack World Rallyteam is a new team with a not com-pletely new driver, Tänak always having been a DMack protégé. But the Monte is not his favourite rally. Still he did not do too badly until he rolled his car. But he brought it back and ended up in seventh place. So he not only gathered some points for himself, but also for his team. All is well that ends well and we are definitely looking forward to the more Tanak friendly rally’s in the rest of the season.

Fuckmatié WRT Lorenzo Bertelli now is part of the M-Sport family. He still has his own team but technically his car is an M-Sport car. This however did no bring the desired situation. Halfway Friday he slides off the road and that was the first rally of his slightly limited 2016 programme.

RK World RallyteamRobert Kubica’s programme for this year is still very uncertain but for Monte Carlo he did find the necessary funds. On the initial two stages of the rally he scored relatively well by classifying his Ford Fiesta both times in eighth place. However it did not come very much further. Your Rally-eMag crew saw him pass in the bright sunshine of Friday’s first stage. But only a few minutes later it went wrong. A patch of black ice tricked him just like Paddon, Camilli and Bertelli on the same spot. He smashed into a tree with his booth still on the road. But when Elfyn Evans passed he too got caught by the patch of ice and leaned the rear of his Fiesta R5 heavily on Kubica’s Fiesta. The R5 proceeded without problems but Kubica’s WRC got stuck be-tween the side of the road and the tree that already had caught him. A week after the rally Kubica tweeted: “I regret to have to tell you I will not be in Sweden.” We hope the nice Pole will get another chance in WRC. It would be sad if this were the end of his career in WRC.

Overall final classification

1. Ogier / Ingrassia Volkswagen Polo R WRC 3:49:53.1 2. Mikkelsen / Jæger Volkswagen Polo R WRC +1:54.53. Neuville / Gilsoul Hyundai i20 WRC +3:17.94. Østberg / Fløene Ford Fiesta RS WRC +4:47.75. Lefebvre / Moreau Citroën DS3 WRC +7:35.66. Sordo / Martí Hyundai i20 WRC +10:35.57. Tanak / Mölder Ford Fiesta RS WRC +11:39.98. Evans / Parry Ford Fiesta R5 +18:30.89. Lappi / Ferm Škoda Fabia R5 +20:41.0 10. Kremer / Winklhofer Škoda Fabia R5 +20:43.9

2016 FIA WRCManufacturers’ Standings1. Volkswagen Motorsport 252. Hyundai Motorsport 253. Volkswagen Motorsport II 18 4. M-Sport World Rally Team 12 5. DMACK World Rally Team 8 6. Hyundai Motorsport N 6

Rallye Monte Carlo / Standings

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2016 FIA WRCDrivers’ Standings1. Sebastien Ogier 28 2. Andreas Mikkelsen 19 3. Thierry Neuville 154. Mads Østberg 125. Stéphane Lefebvre 10 6. Dani Sordo 107. Ott Tanak 6 8. Elfyn Evans 4 9. Esapakki Lappi 210. Armin Kremer 1

TommiMäkinen

On building a WRC teamWords: Steven van Veenendaal; Images: PR

Interview / Tommi Mäkinen

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At the WRC launch session in the Hotel de Paris in Monaco, we ran into Tommi Maki-nen. The four time World Rally Champion is now in charge of the preparations for Toy-ota’s 2017 return to the WRC. Of course we nabbed him away for an interview about the team’s progress so far.

“Progress is going very, very well. We are ac-tually a bit ahead of our schedule at the mo-ment. It is great to see such a positive atmos-phere around the project. So first I would like to thank Toyota as it is such a positive feeling working with them and this has also allowed us to attract good people to the project who have put in a great effort.”

You and your company are spearheading the team, but Toyota itself and Toyota Motorsport are also involved. It seems like there is some overlap between those parties as Toyota Mot-orsport was also quite a way in with the devel-opment of a Yaris WRC. Can you explain how all those parties fit together in the project?

“The overall project responsibility is complete-ly with us and of course we are cooperating and discussing with Japan a lot to make deci-sions together. The overall operation is with us, the design team and engineers are employed by us, while the marketing is done by Toyota itself.”

Tommi Mäkinen

Team principal Toyota Gazoo Racing’s

WRC team

Interview / Tommi Mäkinen

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And then there is Toyota Motorsport, who were also developing a WRC and were already testing quite a bit. Are they involved with specific parts like the engine?

“We cooperate with TMG and they are the main partner for us in develop-ing the new engine. It had to be completely redesigned for the new 2017 regulations. Those new regulations mean that the tests you mention with the 2016 spec Yaris don’t really help us a lot anymore because the 2017 regulations are completely different. The transmission will be different, the aerodynamics, suspensions parts, wheel track, engine performance, there are so many things. I would say that every teams needs to build a completely new car for 2017.”

You are not just building a new car, you are also building a new team to develop it now, and run it from 2017 on.

“Yes, we split the departments and have different people responsible for different areas. We have started to build the team infrastructure. It takes quite a lot of time to build up everything, all equipment for all areas but that is already well underway. The suppliers for building all necessary equip-ment are up to speed and know their timetables. Marketing of course is also a very important aspect that we are discussing with TMC (Toyota Mo-tor Corporation) and TME (Toyota Motor Europe). “

Do you already have the buildings to operate from?“Yes, of course, we cannot do it without, that would be difficult!” (laughs… and keeps lauging for quite some time… The Mack is back and clearly enjoying himself.)

Tommi praised to positive attitude held by all involved in the project. It shows here, from left to right: Toshio Sato, Tommi Makinen, Akio Toyoda and Koei Saga

The wraps came off the new Yaris WRC at the Toyota GAZOO Racing press conference to reveal its new livery.

I mean that you might need to build spe-cific buildings for this project, not operat-ing out of your current offices.

“At the moment we are operating from our existing offices because we have quite a good facility for the prototype- and test projects as well as for building the cars for 2017. My target is to keep our cur-rent place as the HQ and R&D facility. We are still thinking about what the best place would be for our base when we start the operation phase. Now we are build-ing prototypes, testing and building more cars towards 2017, but operation means that we are not building any cars. We are operating each driver with two cars and we need a place out of which we can do the service for them, do quality controls, make spare parts, stock etc. We have a pretty clear plan for the facility and still have good time this year to find the proper location.” With regard to the personnel, do you have all the key peo-ple in place, the drivers for example?

“We have, our total number of people is around 50 at the moment and at the beginning of March there will be a lot more because that’s when we’ll start testing. As for the driv-ers, I am mainly discussing with test drivers at the moment. We need quite a lot of test drivers as our target is to operate three different test cars. (At least one of them will be piloted by Mikko Hirvonen ed.). But of course I am also looking at the driver possibilities for the team in 2017. We need to be realistic in that area with whom we could have and unfor-tunately it seems that most of the top drivers are occupied until the end of 2017. That means that, I would say very realistically that we would have to concentrate on learning,

developing the car and showing the potential in order to wake driver’s interest for 2018. In my opinion 2018 would be the first moment when we could have a possibility to employ the best drivers and also possibly start looking at some real results. “

Does that mean that for 2017 you will be looking at different drivers for different events, to employ surface specialists to show the potential of the car in the best way?

“Yes, that is quite possible. I am still looking around but nothing has been decided yet.”

Will we see you back behind the wheel at some point?

“Yes because I have quite a lot of experience too (there’s that typical Tommi laugh again). I will do some tests for sure, at least the first test I will do to see what it is that we’ve built!”

1 Fourteen’s better than 13. If it was up to you and me, we’d rarely have a week with-out a World Rally Championship round – so an extra one from last season’s fine by me.

2 China. I competed in the Chinese Rally Championship with Alister McRae last sea-son and, trust me, it’s an experience you won’t forget in a hurry. It’s a fantastic – and crazy – place.

3 Even closer competition. The champion-ship leader running first on the road on Fri-day and Saturday, regardless of who’s re-tired and returning under Rally 2 regulations means this year’s events will be closer than ever.

4 Warmer in Wales. It’s statistically less likely to rain in October than it is in Novem-ber. And statistics are always, always right. #binthebrolly

5 A full Hyundai season for Hayden Pad-don. Like everybody, I was really excited to

see the pace coming from Hayden last year and it’ll be fascinating to see how he goes in his first full year in the World Rally Cham-pionship in 2016.

6 Talking of Hyundai, another reason to be cheerful is the work my mate Seb Marshall will be doing with Kevin Abbring in testing and developing Hyundai’s third new World Rally Car in as many years!

7 Talking of mates, we can’t go any further without mentioning Craig Breen and Scott Martin. I can’t think of two more deserving fellas to get a go at the top of the World Ral-ly Championship tree.

8 While we’re on the subject of heroes from around these parts, let’s not forget Kris Meeke, Paul Nagle, Elfyn Evans and Craig Parry; they’re sure to light the World Rally Championship up every time they tighten their belts this season. >>

MAXRALLY / Loudon’s 16 reasons

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The new World Rally Championship season is finally upon us (even though we only left Wales 65 days ago). And, as the WRC winds itself up in the mountains, leading Scottish co-driver Stuart Loudon has listed his top 16 reasons to look for-ward to 2016.

Warmer in Wales. It’s statistical-ly less likely to rain in October than it is in November. And sta-tistics are always, always right.

#binthebrolley

MAXRALLY.comA website that takes a

slightly different (and we hope interesting) look at

the world of rallying.

Loudon’s 16 reasonsto love WRC 2016Republished with permission of MAXRALLY.com

MAXRALLY / Loudon’s 16 reasons

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9 Mads Ostberg back at M-Sport. Mads always looked more at home in a Ford Fiesta RS WRC than he did in a DS 3. Potential winner this year? You bet.

10 M-Sport on top of the podium again. See above.

11 Toyota. Not long now until the world’s biggest carmaker comes back to the World Rally Championship. #welcomehome

12 No more false starts. Bravo to the FIA for handing a time of 10 minutes to any driver jumping the start at shakedown. This, we’re told, was becoming increasingly common as some crews tried to get an early upper hand over their rivals. The little tinkers. #illegally-eagerbeavers

13 Fifty miles in Mexico. How cool is that new Guanajuato stage on the final day of Ral-ly Mexico. It’s going to be epic.

14 DMACK and Ott Tanak. For the first time, DMACK will contest the entire World Rally Championship with a Ford Fiesta RS WRC. And the car will be driven by the super-talent-ed Tanak.

15 Better telly than ever in Britain. Channel 5, BT Sport and S4C will combine to show stacks of coverage of this year’s series. It’ll be wall-to-wall WRC. #forgetDownton

16 Finally, my 16th reason for looking forward to this year is the op-portunity the World Rally Championship affords the world’s fastest rally drivers and most dedicated co-drivers. If, by the way, anybody’s looking for a dedicated co-driver with WRC experience, a working knowledge of Chinese food and a plentiful supply of Caramel Wafers… you know where I am.

the roadtochina pt1

Words and mages: Harry van Veenendaal

Feature / The Road to China

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We kick things off with Oliver Ciesla’s story, the man in charge of putting together the WRC calendar and presenting it to the WRC Com-mission for formal approval. We have been talking to him about the subject on several oc-casions but the story below is the situation as it is today, or rather as it was during the start of the WRC season in Monte Carlo this year. But first a few things about the recent past: Since he became one of the bosses of WRC Pro-moter, Ciesla has been working on introducing China to the WRC Calendar. This had several reasons. For a World Championship the geo-graphical spread of the events had too much focus on Europe. So apart from bringing in overseas events he wanted to (re-) introduce an Asian event. This proved to be anything but

an easy task. The focus quickly came to China. Mainly because China has the biggest car mar-ket in the world, so manufacturers were eager to present themselves in this country. But the manufacturers also wanted a moderate budg-et. So it was clear the number of events should stay at thirteen. When the 2016 calendar was presented there were fourteen events. So our first question to Ciesla was why there are now fourteen events on the calendar.

Ciesla: Well, it’s true that from a promoter’s point of view, and also from what we under-stood from the part of the manufacturer teams, the budget situation dictated to maintain the level on thirteen events. This meant no one needed to invest money for an additional event.

Oliver Ciesla

Director at WRC Promoter

GmbH

As we all know the WRC will return to China this September. The last time the WRC was in China, was in 1999, so we can almost speak of a completely new event. As a build up to the event we have been looking for stories that tell something about the unique character of the event. Our first story is that of Oliver Ciesla, one of the two managing directors of WRC promoter GmbH. In future issues of Rally-eMag we will talk to more stakeholders in-volved, like the Chinese promoter, someone who was in China during the 1999 event and many others. So stay tuned for the full ‘Road to China’.

>>

Feature / The Road to China

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So no extra budget needed for having to travel and all the logistic costs and the likes. To all parties it was clear that adding China, as a new Asian event on the calendar was not a question. That was a move that was absolutely wanted and supported. Apparently the consequence to the FIA was to re-place a European event with a new event or to add this new event. In the end the procedure is that we as promoter propose the calendar. This calendar proposal can be approved by the various com-missions from the governing body or can be sent back. In this case we could not find an agreement what rally to replace on the current calendar and the consequence of this disagreement was that we ended up with a fourteen events calendar.

ReM: Have the manufacturers, been included in the decision-making?

Ciesla: On the first level, it is the WRC Commis-sion that has a vote and in the WRC Commission we find representatives of the FIA and ourselves as well as representatives from the manufacturer teams, a private team representative and numer-ous representatives of the local event promoters and respective motor sports federations.

ReM: How many teams do you expect to be in Chi-na, apart form the manufacturer teams that have to be there?

Ciesla: It is too early for me to say, of course we are pushing all teams to come and most of the teams wanted to have China on the calendar for commercial reasons, for bringing their brand to the country that is selling most cars and buying most cars in the world today; so it would be con-

tradictory to support having China on the calendar and then not going. On the other hand if in a par-ticular year you have a particular budget situation you have to respect that as it is. But then we are all optimistic that in 2017 we are all on top-level again.

ReM: So China will go on this year?

Ciesla: Yes there is no question about it. China will start this year. It has as a three-year agreement so the WRC will definitely be in Beijing in 2016, 17 and 18. So everyone can make plans to come. It’s easy to fly to Beijing no connecting flights in Chi-na, the distance from the airport to the servicepark is approximately 60 kilometres north of Beijing, so we made it all easy for you to accommodate your-selves without too many logistic requirements. It used to be a bit more complicated in the past but now you can organize everything at the airport.

ReM: Does the Chinese government support the event?

Ciesla: I cannot answer that today and I’m also the wrong person to ask. But in our talks with the Chinese Motorsport federation, we asked for the support to the extent that they can deliver it. And the Chinese Motorsport Federation is a 100 % government entity, so I expect they will support our request. But I’ve seen the organizers are set-ting up a team now. A big part is already working, commercial people are working, organizational people are working and sooner or later all the in-frastructure will be in place and all our questions will be answered. So see you in China!

China rally basicsThe rally will be held on 8- 11 September 2016. Rally HQ is in a venue constructed for the APEC summit conference in 2014. It is near Yanqi Lake located in the scenic Yanqi Township, in the Huairou District. It is about 50 kilometers and about a 45 minutes’ drive from the downtown area. From Beijing Capital International Airport it is about a 30 minutes’ drive. The stages will be at a reasonable distance from Rally HQ the surface being mostly tarmac.

Rally America / Sno*Drift Rally

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Rally Racing Turns to Ice forSno* Drift 2016On January 29-31, 2016, forty-two hoonigans and their dedicated co-drivers gathered in Atlanta, Michigan to plow through one of the most difficult rallies of the year: Sno* Drift. Proudly staged by Rally

America, it has been the annual season opening event in the Na-tional Championship Series since 1973.

It’s an extremely challenging event and the conditions are unpredictable at best. No matter what the weather calls for — billowing fluffy snow, white-out conditions, or slush and ice — studded tires are not allowed, even in the worst of weather conditions. The 130-mile course demands full concentration from every driver and co-driver, no matter how experi-enced they may be, and sliding into a snowbank is almost guaranteed.

Fortunately, 2016 gave way to sunny weather conditions, but after a few passes on each course, ice began to form under the packed-down snow. Hundreds of spectators bundled up in multiple layers to brave the cold for hours on end just to see their favorite teams whip around a corner into view. Roars of cheers and the ringing of cow bells erupted as each vehicle raced by, earning extra applause with every backfire. The smell of race gas billowing through the crisp winter air made standing in the cold worthwhile — and then some. As each of 17 stages were com-pleted, fans ran — rather clumsily with their thick snow pants and over-sized boots — from their current post to get into their car and drive to the next best viewing spot, ending at the grand finale where the crowds really go wild: Bonfire Alley.

Meanwhile, the pit crews, perhaps the most dedicated participants out of any, stand by to assist their team with any repairs needed in-between stages. Fingers are always crossed hoping that nothing breaks, but with the rough terrains in rally driving, breaks seem inevitable. Pit crews are seen rolling around in the snowy slush underneath vehicles making the quickest repairs possible as to not lose time.

Words & images: Tara Hurlin

Top: Who said you don’t rally a wagon? All Subarus are born to rally!Bottom: Snow and darkness always provide some of the best action for the crowds.

Buckey Lasek recently entered the world of rally racing, and this was his first year at Sno* Drift. His best time was during the first day on Stage 2 with a time of 16-minutes, 49.6-seconds, coming in second to Lauchlin O’Sullivan. Alas, Lasek’s 2008 Subaru WRX STI suffered a broken con-trol arm on the second and final day, which took him out of the race, but he will be back for more. “The highs and the lows are so gnarly, but it’s what keeps me wanting more,” he said. He spent the remainder of the day spectating with fans.

After an impressive performance, driver Peter Fetela with co-driver Dominik Jozwiak won the Sno* Drift event with an overall time of 2:27:58.9 in their 1998 Subaru Impreza STi, only sixth-tenths of a second ahead of Troy Miller — possibly the closest race in Sno* Drift’s history. Even better yet, Fetela was unable to complete his new build in time for the rally, so he opted to bring his older car just so he could enter. Another impressive time is held by driver Cameron Steely and co-driver Preston

Osborn, who won first in the two-wheel-drive class with a 2012 Ford Fi-esta R1, earning an inspiring overall time of 2:50:33.7.

Driver Dylan Helferich with the Relentless Rally Team reflects on the adrenaline-driven event: “It was a great weekend of competing. The courses were real slippery and the stage conditions were a challenge, which allowed for lots of opposite lock steering. We were supported by a great crew, family, friends and fans.”

The cold, wet fans drove home with smiles on their faces after a week-end of hiking in the snow, their voices hoarse from cheering: It will be an event to reminisce about for years to come. The teams headed home to immediately start prepping their cars in time for their next rally of the 2016 season, and all those who spent their weekend engulfed in the rally winter wonderland will struggle to focus as Monday approaches with the distant echo of rally cars racing through their minds.

Big snowbanks, made to hang your tail in. Peter Fetela and Dominik Jozwiak brought their Impreza home first.

Rally-eMag / For My Friends

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for my friendsWhen travelling the world to snap the WRC, our photographer Bas Romeny comes across many interesting scenes, both rally re-lated and not-so rally related. Here are his finds from Monte Carlo.

Jost is betting on another horse. ( bronze as well..)

On our way to Gap. Interesting car. Nice li-cence plate.

Contrast of old and new..

Waiting for the first night-stage. What else could I do?

Qassimi’s rally car and his shopping car?

It seems to be slip- pery, both for carsand spectators

I like ‘nature’ artists.

I honour of Ogier, who lived in Gap.

If I see his eyes, this spectatorhad enough to drink.

Ciao Bas

‘I just made it to end up at podium huh?’ Neuville after powestagefinish.

see you next time...