Mikko Hirvonen exclusive!

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve mentioned it a few times but for some reason I’ve never put it up, so here it is, the exclusive Mikko Hirvonen interview.

WordPress isn’t allowing me to upload either an MP3 or a Wav file (why is there an option to upload audio then if you can’t do it simply?) so you’ll just have to make do with the transcript until I can work it out.

Remote:Service: What do you think of british rally fans?

Mikko: I think they’re great, because of course Britain has a long history in rallying. Most of the fans have been watching rallying from the seventies or eighties, ok there’s a lot of younger people as well but there’s many older men and they are so passionate. They know a lot about rallying over here.

Remote:Service: With what you’ve learnt this season do you think in next year’s championship you’ll be in a better position to fight Sebastien a lot more for the title?

Mikko: For sure I believe so, like I said it was about consistency this year but the speed has really come as well and I’m sure next year it’s not just being consistent, I think we’ve got the speed to win more rallies as well so we’ll definitely be making it even harder for Sebastien.

OK I know it’s very short and of course this isn’t the full interview but as it took place towards the end of last year a lot of what Mikko was talking about is now irrelevant.

What I find interesting is when he says ‘I think we’ve got the speed to win more rallies as well so we’ll definitely be making it even harder for Sebastien.’

Hmmm, we don’t seem to have seen any of this yet.

Perhaps these victories are yet to come or perhaps Mikko is being told not to push for victories as hard as he normally would in favour of getting Ford some much needed manufacturer points in wake of his team-mate’s recent excursions off the road.

Or maybe he’s finding this year more difficult than he predicted.

One thing in his favour though, what a polite man he is, I still can’t get over how warm and friendly he was. I honestly think this guy is the most genuine of the WRC drivers competiting at the moment.

We’re lucky to have someone like him in our sport, politeness costs nothing and a few other drivers could benefit from taking a lesson from him, mentioning no names…..ahem….Francois Duval.

M-Sport’s new machine

M-Sport have finally announced they’re planning on building a Super 2000 rally car.

The car, based on the new Ford Fiesta, will conform to the new FIA World Rally Championship technical regulations and will be designed by the genius that is Christian Loriaux.

Super 2000 cars were confirmed as being the future of the WRC last month and it looks as though Ford and M-Sport are already planning for the future.

Testing is planned for later this year and the car will be available for national championship competitors in time for the start of the 2010 season.

I’m not keen on the new Super 2000 idea but it’s good to see some teams being proactive in accepting the changes.

SAVE OUR JARI-MATTI!

This poor guy’s praying to keep his rallying dreams alive.

If you’re on this site and you’re a rally fan you should be praying too.

Thankfully crash.net have now reported that Malcolm Wilson has confirmed his faith in Jari-Matti in allowing him to compete in Argentina after earlier hinting that his future at Ford was in doubt.

Jari-Matti and Malcolm are all smiles, I doubt there are many smiles in the Ford service area at the moment

Good on you Malcolm – Jari-Matti needs his team and his fans at this difficult time.

But as per usual after something like this you get the armchair critics blasting the poor boy and now he apparently doesn’t deserve his drive as he’s not making the most of his opportunities.

Latvala’s a one off.

I can see where these ‘fans’ are coming from but in my eyes he’s the best we’ve seen in years, maybe he’s just trying too hard.

He’s not a Duval, he’s not arrogant and wasting his chances. He’s quick, exciting to watch and is a genuine guy who’s passionate about what he does.

He has the speed but his unharnessed potential means he can’t take advantage of it – that’s down to the team to help him through.

I can’t begin to imagine how he’s going to tackle Argentina but what he doesn’t need is people turning on him in this stage of his career. We can’t afford to lose him now!

So come on, show your support with Remote:Service!

What a difference a year makes

This time last year we were all basking in the glory of WRC’s ‘saviour’ Jari-Matti Latvala.

His win in Sweden injected a glimmer of excitement to the WRC. He was a champion in waiting but he’s only finished on the podium once this season and has only completed the other two events using the Super Rally system after driver errors forced early retirements.

And you all know what happened this weekend. The less said about that the better.

Now fans on official WRC website the are voting whether he should stay in the team – 50% say yes, 50% say no. Earlier reports on the site also indicated team boss Malcolm Wilson was reconsidering Jari-Matti’s place in the team.

Oh dear.

I hope to high heaven that Jari-Matti’s fans aren’t turning into Lewis Hamilton fans – supporting all the way when things are good, then dropping the driver as soon as things go wrong.

Come on, rally round, show the boy some support.

A big one, a really big one

This is horrible.

Most of you guys will have already seen this and I think you’ll agree it’s pretty shocking.

If you haven’t seen it this is Jari-Matti Latvala crashing out of Rally Portugal fairly spectacularly. If you watch carefully he didn’t even clip the bank to the left too hard but it sent him flying over the barrier and 150m down a ravine – some reports are saying he rolled 12 times but I lost count.

I really don’t know how both Jari-Matti and Miikka Anttila came out of this unhurt.

It was his 24th Birthday too, what a present this was.

Hopefully we won’t see another accident like this for a long time.

Moon man Matt

Take a minute out of your busy lives to take a look at these pictures…

I forgot to mention this in my earlier post and this in no way is meant to be a nasty post.

But don’t you think our lovely Matt has a spookily similar face to that of the moon man?

I think it’s his face colour, nose and jawline that give this rather moon-esque appearance.

All those who criticize his driving prowess just stop for a minute and allow yourselves to revel in the fact that although his driving talents might not be up to scratch his space-age like features are wonders to behold.

Don’t see it? No??

Maybe it’s just me then.

Too close to home???

I was doing a bit of background research for this post and I came across this little gem and it got me thinking.

His dad is his boss and his mum apparently travels to every WRC event with her boy.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Mr and Mrs Wilson a lot but surely it can’t do much for Matthew’s street cred to have your mum waiting for you in the service park of every rally.

I wonder if Matthew moved to another team, away from the comfort of his family then we’d get a real glimpse of whatever talent his Dad claims he has.

To be honest I think that would be the best thing for him, having a real boss, a different car and a bigger opportunity to prove he’s not just in the WRC because Daddy’s paid for him to be there Antony Warmbold style.

Matthew, Matthew, Matthew, come on, give me a win

The questions is though, can he?

Our young Brit kept his nose clean out in Cyprus, finishing 5th overall he’s now 6th in the championship, two points above Jari-Matti Latvala.

He’s doing well, right?

Well not according to some people.

Since the deaths of Richard Burns and Colin McRae there has been no one with enough talent to make headlines and create interest in the WRC.

If Matthew had enough talent surely he would’ve already excelled on a rally which would have caught our attention.

This is yet to happen and with Matt being the only Brit out there it must knock his confidence when the critics launch the ‘he’s wasting a precious seat’ argument.

Well excuse me, no he’s not.

He may not be the best driver out there and at the moment he can’t be classed as a special driver, only a mere average driver.

But he certainly hasn’t ‘stolen’ anyone else’s opportunity to be in a factory team – I really doubt whether the seat would have existed if Matthew hadn’t come along.

In fact you could argue that his involvement in the WRC has created more opportunities for other up and coming drivers so leave the poor guy alone for once!

Rally Norway: Ford v Superhuman Seb

Last year I was lucky enough to interview Mikko Hirvonen at Rally Day, Castle Combe.

He was a great guy; really friendly, down to earth and very eager to chat to everyone in the media centre. He was also very optimistic about his prospects for 2009 and when I asked him if he thought he would be in a better position to fight Sebastien Loeb for the title he replied,

“For sure I believe so, it was about consistency this year (2008) but the speed has really come as well and I’m sure next year it’s not just being consistent, I think we’ve got the speed to win more rallies as well so we’ll definitely be making it even harder for Sebastien.”

Heading into Rally Norway Mikko and team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala were both clear favourites and I for one expected a battle between the two of them for the win. What with Sebastien’s poor showing in the snow events of the past two years, Mikko’s win in Rally Norway 2007 and Jari-Matti’s triumph in Sweden last year, I believed, perhaps naively, in Mikko’s belief that he could make the championship race harder for the five time world champ and this belief would be put into practice on this event.

It never happened. Mikko finished second and Jari-Matti third.

Rally Norway podium, a 'disappointed' Mikko takes the second position. Picture courtesy of www.motorsport.com

After the rally he was quoted as saying the event had been ‘crazy at times’, he was pushing both himself and his car to the absolute limit and admitted that he just couldn’t respond to Seb’s speed.

He was leading, that’s the thing that gets to me the most. Ok, it was the smallest of margins but he was beating Seb.

Once again team tactics were put into put into play in the Ford camp but taking a gamble and slowing down to secure a better road position on Day Two just didn’t pay off this time. It seems to me that the disadvantage of being first on the road is almost non-existent to Sebastien now – with his dominance over the past five years he has had so much more practice running first than his rivals can boast.

It is up to Mikko himself to prove he’s up to the standard set by Seb, not some clever tactics devised from the comfort of the service park.

Unlike many I don’t think of him as an ‘average’ driver driving an ‘average’ car. He has shown himself to have great skill but being pitted against the seemingly unstoppable superhuman force of Sebastien and his C4 he, and his car for that matter are unfairly given this label.

However, it has now got to the stage where Ford cannot take a win on an event they go into as the absolute favourites and even using tactics doesn’t help. As a fan of Mikko I find this hard to say but realistically the only chance he has of “making it even harder” for Sebastien to get the title is if Ford produce a car up to the standard of the C4, but by the time that happens the greatest driver/car combination the sport has ever seen will be long gone.