WRC Portugal 2007 - Talk/Results *spoiler

[Weasel 555]

Citroen's Sebastien Loeb has won the Rally de Portugal, the fifth round in the 2007 FIA World Rally Championship.

Loeb took the lead late on Friday, snatching the position in the final test, to end the day 3.1 seconds up on Marcus Gronholm. He then put the hammer down on Saturday and pulled further and further away, thanks to six stages wins from six, to end the second leg with a 40.5 second advantage.

As such he just took it easy on the final day on Sunday and eventually took the victory by more than 30 seconds. It was his third win of the season, after also triumphing in Mexico and Monte Carlo.

Marcus Gronholm had to settle for the runners-up spot in his BP Ford, after losing time on day two due to poor tyre choices, which meant he was unable to keep up with Seb. The turning point came on SS12 and SS13, when he lost more than 20 seconds in total. After that there was no way back.

Mikko Hirvonen took the final place on the podium in the sister Focus, 2 minutes or so adrift. Although the Finn thought he might come under pressure from Petter Solberg on day three, as it turned out he took third with ease, eventually finishing around 60 seconds up on the Norwegian.

Citroen number two driver, Dani Sordo meanwhile took fifth, followed by Stobart Ford's Jari-Matti Latvala, OMV Kronos Citroen's Daniel Carlsson and Gigi Galli, who took the ‘privateer win' in eighth.

Henning Solberg and Manfred Stohl completed the top ten, the former once again taking the final manufacturers' point for the Stobart Ford squad.

[Weasel 555]

how does one even follow the wrc?i have never seen it on tv and just looking at the standings dont do much for me.

well you could start going to rallies here in the U.S. to get a taste for rallying
http://www.nasarallysport.com/esrc.php

or go to a rally america event:
http://www.rally-america.com/index.php

A motorsports torrent site for WRC:
http://motorsport-torrents.info/viewforum.php?id=2

http://www.torrentspy.com/search?que...x=0&submit.y=0

other than that hopefully 1 day again ESPN or Speed or maybe even another sporting channel may pick up WRC for us to watch here in the states

[PolarisSnT]

Looks like Petter took second place after a 5 minute penaly was handed out to 6 of the Ford Focus cars for having to thin rear glass. The story is on SWRT.com so Petter inherits second place

[Weasel 555]

from crash.net
http://www.crash.net/news_view~cid~4~id~145594.htm

Ford has pledged to launch a 'detailed investigation' after six of its cars, including those of 'A' team drivers, Marcus Gronholm and Mikko Hirvonen, were penalised by the stewards.

All the 06 spec Ford Focus WRC runners - namely Gronholm and Hirvonen, as well as Stobart trio, Jari-Matti Latvala, Henning Solberg and Matthew Wilson and privateer Gareth MacHale - were given five minute penalties and a reprimand following the finish of the Rally de Portugal, the fifth round in the 2007 FIA World Rally Championship, after the event scrutineers found that the rear side windows did not comply with the homologation form of the car in terms of thickness.

Although the discrepancy was minuscule - less than half a millimetre and would have had no affect in terms of performance, Ford have accepted the judgement of the stewards and will not be appealing.

Indeed while the stewards agreed it would not have benefited the cars, it was still a breach of the regulations and as such could not go unpunished.

Ford team director Malcolm Wilson said he was ‘disappointed' with the whole situation, but conceded that it their own fault.

"We were disappointed to learn from the scrutineers that the team made an error," he confirmed. "We will launch a detailed investigation into how this could have happened at M-Sport."

New Times/Position after the 5 min penalties for Ford:

1.Loeb - C4 - 3h53'33"
2.P.Solberg - Subaru - 3h56'47"0
3.Sordo - C4 - 3h58'38"4
4.Gronholm - Ford - 3h59'10"2
5.Hirvonen - Ford - 4h00'41"2
6.Carlsson - Xsara - 4h01'46"3
7.Galli - Xsara - 4h03'12"7
8.Latvala - Ford - 4h04'18"0
9.Stohl - Xsara - 4h06'19"1
10.Mikkelsen - Ford - 4h07'24"7
11.H.Solberg - Ford - 4h09'45"5
12.Wilson - Ford - 4h13'09"2

[RS22b]

just amazing! great for Petter and the other drivers/teams to get some points in there.

While this is a bit ludicris from our end on a orgainzer end, they did the correct move and made the right comments.

this really helps keep things fair across the board. To have such a thorough look at each car really keeps the teams and racing in check. If they cant comply things like this happen. Swift kick in the ass.

_billy