WRC - Cyprus

By Naughtynat
September 26 2006

Everything looked alright for Marcus Gronholm and Sebastian Loeb as they moved through the first day.The two were taking the first two places,with a very small gap between them.Sordo got off to a good start as he was third on the first special stage,but fell significantly behind afterwards.In the end of Day 1,Gronholm was 6.2 seconds in front of Loeb.Hirvonen (as usual) was third,as third place claimer Toni Gardemeister had a gearbox and flat tyre problem.Fourth was Manfred Stohl that does very well in Cyprus,as last year he was second behind Loeb.
Day two started with even more competition,as the two had a very good battle until SS14.Gronholm made a mistake,and as a result the engine was turned off and he lost valuable seconds along with the first place.And like that wasn't enough,Loeb's tyre choice for the next (30km) SS was better than Gronholm's,and that brought the gap up to 21 seconds.Dani Sordo's accident makes it even more interesting,as Hirvonen who is third collects valuable points for Ford.Fourth is still Stohl,fifth is Toni Gardemeister after Atkinson's out,sixth is Xavier Pons,and the Solberg brothers with Petter in front complete the 8.
Day 3 includes only 6 Special Stages,and one of them is the Down Town Special.Everything went as normally for them all,until the DTS.The DTS is a new type of SS introduced in world rallying.The route of the cars would be in the city of Limassol,passing through shopping streets,squares,cafes.13 000 people showed up in downtown Limassol to watch the event,that turned out to be a fiasco.The FIA officials said that the times of the SS wouldn't be included in the overall times.So the cars would only pass so that they wouldn't let down the crowd.The drivers weren't aware that their times wouldn't count,and Dani Sordo went over the lind and crashed into the garden of a square,ruining the Xsara.Because of that and the delay it caused,the next special stage was cancelled.
Back to the racing part.The top three remained as we knew,and the remaining five were : Stohl,Gardemeister,H Solberg,Pons,Solberg.

The aftermath : What aftermath?Its the same as always,Loeb winning,Loeb second,and so on.He has dominated this season so much it gets boring just to mention that he won and extended his lead.
We cannot say the same about the Constructors Championship.Again,Ford collected points with both drivers, 8 + 6 = 14,while only Loeb got 10 for Citroen.This brings the two teams even closer and makes it very interesting as we head to Turkey.Hirvonen is very mature and consistent,which makes him a driver to watch for the future.He's getting closer and closer to Sordo in the standings.
Also,I dont think we will see something like the DTS soon,as it turned out to be a bad idea.Cyprus didnt say goodbye to WRC in the best way,and we will not see them getting back soon.

Drivers Championship Standings:
1 Sebastien Loeb 112
2 Marcus Gronholm 77
3 Dani Sordo 41
4 Mikko Hirvonen 39
5 Manfred Stohl 33
6 Petter Solberg 23
7 Toni Gardemeister 20
8 Henning Solberg 19
9 Giggi Galli 15
10 Chris Atkinson 14

Constructors Championship Standings :
1 Kronos Total Citroen 142
2 Ford 135
3 Subaru 79
4 OMV - Peugeot Norway 59
5 Stobart-VK M-Sport Ford Rallye Team 28
6 Red Bull Skoda 22

Nothing changes in the JWRC Standings as Cyprus isnt included in the JWRC Calendar.