Rally Sweden

Rally Sweden has been materially shortened due to high temps causing much of the snow to melt and flood many stages.

That should favour some of the non-Scandinavian drivers, perhaps Drivers like Kris Meeke, maybe???

Never good to hear of a rally being cut short. The reasons are never good/ positive! I blame global warming.

Cheers, Steve

Steve

Global warming is the certainly cause.

Sweden usually runs under full snow conditions thereby allowing all competing cars to use studs.

But when the snow goes I dont think they are allowed to use them. All the tracks used by the rally are not tracks as we know them, they are the roads linking communities around the area. So what they dont want is a load of rally cars churning up their main roads!!

I went to Rallye Sweden a few years ago. We took a hire car with studded tyres, but the temperatures were around zero and there was not much snow around on the roads let alone the stages. By the time we handed the car back the studs were all gone. We were told that the government or local government say when studded tyres can be used generally. If the snow melts and the tarmac or gravel track reappears studded tyres just wreck the road surface.

The first round of the ERC the Liepaja Rally in Latvia was also cancelled due to lack of snow, Its now running in September.

Nighmare situation for the organisers. After montrhs of planning and you are days away from the main event and oh fudge. They will be tearing their hair out trying to salvage something.

Cheers
Chris

watched a round of ice racing the other night on motors tv, cant rem which scandanavian country it was in, but they had no snow and no ice....just rain and fog....it looked like a dull version of rallycross lol....but i think thet said the cars had their studs removed and were runnning on full wets.....

hoping kris can rem to start gathering points even if it means settling for something less than the win...needs experience if hes for mounting a genuine challenge next year in the new car,,,

Ogier has been putting in his six penny worth.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/122759

Traditionally its always studded tyres. So why cant they just use normal gravel tyres? But I guess the stages are very mixed surfaces of solid ice and hard gravel in the same stage.

If it comes down to a short sprint rally it might just suit Kris?

Chris

thats a really disappointing opinion from ogier..too dangerous on gravel? what's his problem? how sanitised and predictable does he want his rally to be, surely part of the challenge of rallying which sets its apart from other, dare i say more boring, forms of motorsport is the changing and unpredictable surfaces and weather they face... look at the monte, drivers over the years have had snow, ice, rain, dry tarmac to deal with, all one stage!! come on ogier, grow a set m8!!  and to say he know it would mean a lot of trouble is an understatement, what about the fans who have taken flights etc to go follow their sport? fans are not all millionaire sports stars....(well i'm not anyway, don'y know about the rest of the forum members....!)

I think one of the problems is while there is no snow or ice on the surface, the earth underneath is still frozen. The rain and water cant drain away so the surface turns to mud. They are not allowed run gravel tyres from what ive read, only studded as its classed as a snow rally. So wrong tyres on those kind of stages is a big safety concern.

I hope the rally does go ahead even if it means less stages. I wonder is it possible to run the good stages more times than they originally planned

thanks for clarification brian, you would think they could use gravel tyres then......so much regulation and red tape.....its supposed to be fun and a spectacle to be enjoyed....

Sweden has been on a tightrope with regards to weather for many years now. We did it over 10 years ago and even then there was a worry that the snowcover was not what they wanted - the gravel rips the studs out of the tyres. The roads flood with the melting snow and turn to mud. Its not a nice surface to rally on. There was talk back then of moving it further north but lack of a suitable base was the issue.

thanks james, guess its easy to criticise from the armchair lol ..my bad....stay safe m8!!

Bit of carnage already and sad to say Kris has been incredibly unlucky yet again!

Gutted for him. So clearly the best of the rest.

If Meeke is helping develop the new citroen car for next year, that suspension will be rock solid by Monte Carlo next year. How many retirements has he had because something like this where suspension has failed or wheels pointing the wrong way

Another good day for Elfyn despite the Scandinavian presence and the two-car factory Fabia R5's. He is even sounding positive this year as well .

Craig Breen posting a quicker stage time than Ogier on his first WRC outing in the DS3 no doubt made his day. Although he had the better of the conditions it was still a promising start.

meeke...
http://www.ewrc-results.com/quickp/26241_meeke.jpg

I saw footage on youtube of Meekes car failing on him, it would be very hard to blame what happened on him in anyway, he just seems to not be getting much luck, even Ogier had proper off road moments but the VW tank just keeps on going for him