GOING DOWN TO THE WIRE
David evans looks ahead to a tense world rally championship title run-in
Standby… I’m going in. I’m going to reveal the precise connotations of who needs to do what to be World Rally champion next time out in Spain.
No I’m not. I’m coming out. My head hurts. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just the straightforward 25 points up for grabs, but the powerstage hurls a mathematical curve ball which puts any coherent equations beyond my abacus and I.
On a fundamental level, we can all agree that Thierry Neuville is the only driver who could walk away with the drivers’ title in Salou. Even if the Belgian failed to score a single point in Spain and Sebastien Ogier took all 30, the defending champ would still need to secure seven more points in Australia to take a sixth successive title.
As for Ott Tanak, 21 down on Neuville, he kind of needs both his rivals to endure a pointless trip to the season’s only mixed-surface round to stand any kind of chance. If that happened and he took a maximum 30, then he would lead the series into Australia on 198 points, compared with 189 for Neuville and 182 for Ogier.
Enough with the hypothetical number crunching.
Let’s get down to what we know. And let’s deal with this thing on an event-by-event basis. There’s not much point talking about Australia until we’ve got Spain done and dusted. So, what can we expect from Catalunya?
In terms of success in the hills around Tarragona, Neuville and Tanak simply can’t come close to Ogier. Since 2013, he’s been strong, but not dominant in Spain. That first win in Salou five years ago was classic Ogier. He led, dropped a minute with a puncture then hammered everybody through the final day’s gravel (admittedly from a preferable place further back on the road) to win.
A year on, another win, but this time much more straightforward, winning Terra Alta on Friday morning and staying out front for the next two and a half days. A year on and the world went a little bit mad. Almost a minute up going into the final 2015 stage, Ogier pushed for powerstage points and tripped himself up. He ran wide, whacked a barrier and retired on the spot.
Normal service was resumed with a win 12 months on and last year he played second fiddle to a fine drive from Kris Meeke.
Neuville and Tanak can talk of nothing like that kind of pace and potential in Spain. By his own admission, round 12 is the one Ogier fancies.
“I know we can be competitive there,” he says. “But when it comes to Australia then anything can happen! In Spain, running order can make a difference…”
His voice trails away. He’s sewn the seed, doesn’t need to do any more. Nobody in the world championship knows how much opening the road and sweeping dry gravel aside can cost a driver like Ogier does, he’s spent years at it. And now it’s Neuville’s turn. And day one of the penultimate round of the season on Friday October 26 could be the biggest day of the Hyundai driver’s career to date. Get this one right, contain the time loss and he’ll carry speed and confidence into a weekend on asphalt which should be much, much more straight forward for him and his i20.
Should be… Last season he struggled like hell with an unwieldy, understeering car which he simply couldn’t nail down on the Tarmac and eventually dropped it and took a wheel off on the final morning.
Now more than ever, Thierry needs to know he can count on the car beneath him.
But, let’s not forget, Neuville’s the man at the top of the table; the man out front. Right now, this championship’s still his to lose. His seven-point advantage would, however, be wiped out in one fell swoop if Ogier wins – obviously depending on who gets their eye in and whacks that powerstage curve ball out of the ground.
And what chance Tanak? Cruelly, he’s the absolute outsider now. He’s entirely reliant on his rivals hitting trouble and no longer master of his own destiny. His retirement from the last round in Wales was one of the hardest to stomach for impartial onlookers. Tanak has bossed this series for the last four rallies. Yes, he lucked-in to the Turkey win, but he was there, kept his Toyota in the middle of the road and drove slowly fastest to score the hat-trick. But last time out, he was comfortably fastest, could and really should have come out of Deeside at the top of the table.
It would be no surprise to see Tanak winning both of the final rallies. He’s likely to be third on the road on day one in Spain and Australia and that’ll give him the edge over just about everybody. But 21 points… it’s very, very difficult to see him overturning that kind of deficit now.
So, for me, Ogier’s the one to watch in Spain. Missing an open goal in Turkey would, undoubtedly, have been a pretty big thing to get over, but Sebastien’s mental strength is beyond question. He’d put his Marmaris mishap to bed by wheelsup out of Dalaman on Sunday night and Wales simply served to balloon the sails above his M-sport Ford Fiesta WRC. Ogier goes to Spain very firmly on the front foot, attacking and pushing for another successful title defence.
What about Neuville’s mental strength? Where will his head be? Having watched this guy mature and mend his ways over the last couple of years, I have little doubt that he can match Ogier. As Seb says, he’s got the points in his pocket. Let’s see if he can keep them there. ■
Organiser: Mull Car Club & Saltire Rally Club When: October 13 Where: Tobermory, Isle of Mull Tests: 12 Starters: 61.
Bevan Blacker and Abi Ruddock scored a clear-cut victory on the Mull Targa Rally last weekend.
A bit of good fortune was required, however, as Blacker suffered a tank-slapper between the forest ditches in test 12, out of the 14 timed tests in total, when the Peugeot 106 got out of phase in the rain-drenched conditions.
Initially it looked as though Andrew Johnson had taken second place in his 46-year-old Lancia Fulvia, but when the observer’s checksheets were handed in a 10-second penalty for striking a cone marker on the first test of the day was added to his total. He also lost precious seconds with a misfire after a watersplash in test 11, but he did win the overall Historic award.
That meant he tied with Geoff Dean/suzanne Barker, but Dean had been four seconds quicker on the tie-deciding opening test with his Suzuki Ignis which had been rescued from its intended final trip to a scrapyard for £150 just 10 days prior.
Although Tom Spencer had been quicker than Dave Leadbetter on test times, the Vauxhall Corsa driver lost out overall to Leadbetter’s superior performance over the regularity tests with his BMW.
Rounding off the top six was the best placed Scot, Craig Wallace, despite a cracked brake disc and therefore no handbrake in his Toyota Corolla. He finished just seven seconds clear of fellow Scot Ryan Hay in his Toyota Paseo.
In a remarkable 10th place overall was Mazda MX-5 roadster driver Fraser Hughes who had left Tain in the far north of Scotland at 0300hrs on the morning of the rally to catch the first ferry, and then immediately afterwards left to catch the late ferry and drive home. He and co-driver Peter Macinnes’ efforts were rewarded with the Spirit of the Rally award.
Allan Clark had been in the top six early in the day until an alternator problem dropped his Hillman Avenger back, while Alan Ross lost out on the top 10 when he beached the Citroen on test 11.
John Rintoul won Sunday’s Mornish Time Trial in his Mitsubishi Lancer, taking the trophy for fastest time of the day on his last run by 0.6s from Tommi Graham, also in a Mitsubishi.
Targa Rally 1 Bevan Blacker/abi Ruddock (Peugeot 106) 26m27s; 2 Geoff Dean/ Suzanne Barker (Suzuki Ignis Sport) +40s; 3 Andrew Johnson/ Dave Boyes (Lancia Fulvia); 4 Dave Leadbetter/ Cath Woodman (BMW 318Ti); 5 Tom Spencer/ Sam Spencer (Vauxhall Corsa); 6 Craig Wallace/ Clifford Auld (Toyota Corolla G6R); 7 Ryan Hay/ Niall Thomson (Toyota Paseo); 8 Kevin Savage/ Phillip Savage (Suzuki Ignis Sport); 9 Mark Standen/ Ian Canavan (Proton Satria); 10 Fraser Hughes/ Peter Macinnes (Mazda MX-5). Class winners: Blacker/ Ruddock; Johnson/ Boyes; Leadbetter/ Woodman; Martin Oglesby/ Rod Carter (Opel Kadette); Ian Buchanan/ Gemma Conroy (Subaru Impreza). Time Trial 1 John Rintoul/yvonne Armour (Mitsubishi Lancer E10 3m35.7s; 2 Tommi Graham/ Mark Pickering (Lancer E8); 3 Sandy Mackenzie/angus Fraser Martin (Opel Manta); 4 Ryan Ingram/ Stuart Maclean (Honda Civic); 5 Donald Macneill/ Cara Macneill (Impreza); 6 Chris Melling/andy Peak (Peugeot 205 GTI).
So deep was the emotion from Colin Turkington that he could hardly speak in his post-race two television interview at Brands Hatch in late September.
Despite the huge joy in taking his third British Touring Car Championship crown, there was relief and that was followed by tears.
It was a release of the pressure that had been building up all season, and it wasn’t only the rollercoaster he had been through on track either.
The BTCC laid on its most competitive season for years, with a recordbreaking 17 different drivers claiming the top step of the rostrum across the 30 rounds.
Indeed, Turkington won only one race, and the pressure of navigating his way through myriad complexities that the championship offers can be hard enough work in its own right.
There are weight penalties to consider, the soft and hard option tyres to work out and the reversed grid races to overcome.
If a driver had all of those factors in his favour, then the path to race victory almost became too easy.
Thankfully, for the credibility of the series, the top drivers figured out how best to navigate a course through all of the random factors to lead the way in the points table throughout.
The success ballast applied to the championship leaders going into any meeting meant that they were rarely able to race from the front straight away. That meant, for the frontrunners at least, the weekends were built around a strong race two (when they were generally shorn of the ballast) and then taking the chances that were presented in the reversed grid race three.
The headline facts about the 2018 BTCC are those 17 different winners over 30 rounds ( see page 23), and Turkington climbed highest of all with a 12-point title victory in his WSR BMWTO nail down his third crown.
Behind that story is one of the toughest fights that the series has featured in modern times.
Although there were only two cars in with a realistic shot at the end – Turkington and Tomingram’s Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Avensis – the path to glory has never been so full of potential pitfalls given the high level of competitiveness of all drivers.
Turkington’s 125imsport is not the freshest car on the grid. It was first introduced into the BTCC in 2013 and, while it has been through several evolutions since then – including the new B48 powerplant, which was added for 2017 – there isn’t much more to come from the rear-wheel-drive car.
That meant Turkington was always going to have an uphill battle on his hands to climb back to the summit of the series, although there were a couple of factors very much in his favour.
The first of those was a new engine tuner for the Team BMR Subaru Levorgs of reigning champion Ash Sutton and team-mate Jason Plato. It took several meetings for this new combination to find a sweet spot, which put them out of victory lane.
The second thing in Turkington’s favour was the brand new Team Dynamics Honda Civic Type Rs, the FK8 versions, of Matt Neal and rookie Dan Cammish.
The low-slung car took some refining too, and that left the way clear at the top of the points for Turkington to strike early on – but it wasn’t plain sailing for him either.
“At no stage this year, though, did we have the fastest car,” explains Turkington. “I have looked back over the points table and although I had just one win at Oulton Park, I had 10 other podium finishes over the course of the year which was more than any other driver. It was consistent scoring from Thruxton through to Silverstone that was where I felt the key to my season was.”
The reason he is pointing out a purple patch in the middle of the season is because in the second meeting of the year at Donington Park, a rare reliability nightmare for WSR left Turkington with just six points from the three races and a slip off the road in race two in the showdown at Brands left him floundering. That mid-season strike rate was vital.
But it is also a mark of the competitiveness of the modern-day series that success ballast now has much more of an impact with the field so closely grouped.
Only on the first three rounds of the year did the Northern Irishman carry less than 66kg of success ballast into the meetings. “It means you have to plan your weekends so much more carefully,” says Turkington. “There has to be a strategy to it, you play for the races where the factors will be more in your favour. That is why it has become harder to win the title. It requires so much more thought. Goodness only knows how I’d go about winning it again. It might need a completely fresh approach.”
His crown was set against the backdrop of the death of his mother Mavis in June. For such a tight-knit family, it was clear this was a painful season and the tears when Turkington claimed the crown showed what a long road the 2018 season had been for him.
While the new champion handled himself with dignity at Brands, so did the defeated Ingram.
The 25-year-old took yet another step forward in his remarkable career but, like Turkington, was forced to play the percentages.
Like his rival, after round one, he didn’t go to a meeting with less than 48kg on his car. That meant race ones were always a battle – indeed, only 18 per cent of his tally came from the opener. This had the double whammy of putting him way down the grid for race twos, where the grid is set from the result of race one.
Once the success ballast was out of the Toyota, it proved it was the fastest car on the grid. He made up 156 places over his grid spots over the 30 races which earned him the Forever Forward award from tyre supplier Dunlop – and it was this clean and concise ability to claw back what had been lost in race ones which kept him firmly in the picture. However, there were