Petter ill?

I’m not sure what’s going on with this story but it seems that Hollywood’s a bit ill.

A few weeks ago I came across this on the WRC website.

I just assumed that he’d caught a bug in Cyprus or just been pushing himself too hard and thought nothing else of it.

But I was doing my usual look on RallyForum and came across this news story from a Norwegian newspaper.

Now I’m not sure what to make of this and I’ve done loads of searching for similar news stories but haven’t found any telling the same story, even wrc.com and crash.net haven’t picked up on it so I don’t really know what’s going on.

All I can say is how determined is this guy if he was ill during Rally Portugal but still managed to get fourth place???

We’re all thinking of you Petter and Remote:Service is wishing you a speedy recovery.

Rally round-up 30th March to 5th April

• Michal Kosciuszko kept his Suzuki Swift S1600 out of trouble and finished first in the Rally Portugal JWRC class. Finishing over six minutes ahead of his nearest rival he’s now level with championship leader Martin Prokop in the standings.
• There was a record number of Norwegians in the Rally Portugal top ten, with Petter finishing 4th, Henning finishing 5th and Mads finishing 6th.
• Matt Wilson actually retired! He rolled it on SS17 and then burnt out the clutch, does this mean he was actually pushing it for once?
• Petter Solberg has revealed he turned down an offer to drive for Courage-Oreca team in 2009 Le Mans Sports Car Series, including the Le Mans 24 hour race. He wanted to give priority to the WRC.
• After taking the first four rallies of the season Sebastien Loeb thinks he can win all the remaining rallies but is still concentrating on keeping his crown.

Championship standings

													Total
1.	S. LOEB	10	10	10	10									40
2.	M. HIRVONEN	6	8	8	8									30
3.	D. SORDO	8	4	5	6									23
4.	P. SOLBERG	-	3	6	5									14
5.	H. SOLBERG	5	5	0	4									14
6.	M. WILSON	2	2	4										8
7.	J-M LATVALA	0	6	0										6
8.	C. ATKINSON	4	-	-										4
9.	F. VILLAGRA	-	-	2	2									4
10.	S. OGIER	3	0	R										3

I told you so…..

About a month ago I wrote this post.

Guess who's back....

I wondered what Prodrive were playing at when they entered Marcus in Rally Portugal.

I knew it wasn’t the one-off they all said it was and now it seems as if my predictions have come true.

David Lapworth (Big Dave) has told our friends over at crash.net that Prodrive are seriously considering a return to the WRC and are already busy planning another one-off return for later on this year.

Supported by the Portuguese Tourism board the Impreza failed to make it to the end of this weekend’s rally when Marcus characteristically rolled.

But on the stages he did complete the former champion showed how quick he could be in what we all consider to be an awful car and Big Dave was obviously excited by what he saw.

He said he considers Portugal to be unfinished business and says Marcus and Prodrive will back be in the ‘not too distant future’.

I’ll keep you updated as and when I hear any more news on this.

Exciting times.

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.

Weekly round-up 23rd March to 29th March

• Marcus Gronholm is hoping to do ‘something good’ but says it will be impossible for him to win his WRC comeback rally in Portugal next week. He completed a 200km, two day test in Spain to sort out the set up of his car and finalise differential and suspension settings – I don’t think anyone cares where he finishes, the majority of fans just seem to be happy that a bit of the old Marcus magic will be back on the stages.

• Two-time BRC champ Guy Wilks is planning to progress to the Intercontinental Rally Challenge. Guy’s been linked with Mellors Elliot MS Team, the company responsible for Proton’s Satria Neo Super 2000. He completed a test with the team last month and was ‘very impressed’ with the car – Finally, things seem to be looking up for the Brit.

• The Vodafone Rally de Portugal is next weekend and is the first pure gravel rally of the season. Six consecutive loose surface events follow so the result of this event will be a key indicator of what’s to come.