Loeb or Hirvonen? The championship will decide the Rally of great Britain - an exciting race with predictable results...
Mikko Hirvonen does not get used to the vice-champion title: he has twice finished the championship in the second place-and the first both times became Sebastien Leb well be Mikko Hirvonen. Flying around the world at the expense of Ford, piloting a powerful and obedient Fiesta RS, win a decade and a half of rally, raise a couple of beautiful (at that age they are all beautiful) sons. But there are a few days in the year that even the most pope races would not change places with Finnish rally-it is when a decisive race stays for a couple of days, fight for the title is to be fought with Sebastian Lebom, and there are a dozen journalists, into the microphones and dictaphone who have to say something. The problem is that there is nothing new to say: Léb and Hirvonen have fought each other for the title, and it ends every time (the victory of the Frenchman), Mikko three times repeated the proper words-and now he only has to recite himself. "There are no winners", "As soon as I understand that Leba cannot be defeated," "The task is very difficult, but we are able to solve it by force"-these chirwonky mantra journalists have already sprinted on paper, and on the eve of the next Rally Great Britain could easily copy the right from their own articles. The statistics on the side of Leba (in the photo): this year he won 5 Rally and 58 special plots, on the account of Hirvonen-2 wins in the race and 33 on special plots The second problem is that on the eve of the decisive race-which has already started on Thursday and will last till Sunday-all the trumps on Leba's hands. To begin with the fact that the difference of 8 points (and the victory at the WRC stage gives 25) weakens the superiority of the Frenchman over the Finds and Citroen over the course of the season. The difference was most evident in Finland: Leb won the race for Hirvonen and led the championship to 36 points. Then this gap narrowed to zero because of three failures of the Frenchman: the punctate did not win the German Rally, the Australian race was damaged by a non-wad accident, and the French race was damaged by an engine failure. Hirvonen, on the one hand, was all in the plus-it reduced the gap to zero. On the other, it is to be hoped that some next trouble will fall on Leba in the decisive two races, and it was already foolish. And the penultimate stage in Spain has been won by a Frenchman by a two-minute break. Mikko Hirvonen and other participants of Rally the Great Britain will have to overcome 23 special stretplots with a total length of about 340 km, one can argue that in Spain the participants of the World Cup were fighting on the asphalt pavement, comfortable for Leba and inconvenient for Hirvonen. The UK's rally, on the contrary, is taking place mostly on the ground, in a particularly unattractive version. The roads in Wales are most often unable to wake up after the rains and are particularly slippery-while the speed on local roads can be improved. But the last few seasons have clearly demonstrated that the Lebu's soil is not a hindrance: in the account of a Frenchman, three victories in the UK against one is the only one in the Finns. The most striking example is the outcome of the 2009 championship. Hirvonen came to the last race of the championship with the advantage of one point, at first the struggle between Citroen and Ford was very close-but on Saturday, the Frenchman literally crushed his rival, taking it out of that almost a second from a kilometer on Hafwah and Chan. For half the day, the gap grew to a minute-and the Finnish Hirvonen Polka was once again in a hurry. One of the hopes of Hirvonen is his teammate, the Finns Yari-Matti Latvala (right), who can push Leba to the third place at a successful location, however, there is one moment that can give the Ford and its fans some optimism. If there are roads in the rally program, where none of the participants in the race has yet to go, Hirvonen is usually very fast on such roads. It was the Finns that won the recent rally in Norway, Poland and Jordan, for the first time as stages of the World Cup and former novelties for most of the factory team pilots. And about half the distance of the current Rally of Great Britain is passing through the roads that the World Cup has not visited for about 15 years. The first part of the Great Ormé race was "rested" for thirty years-since 1981. And these well-forgotten rally roads do not call for innocuous. Darya West's special sites, Divi East (formerly it was a single doop that was considered the best in the history of the rally-but had to "disband" so that the people living in the middle were not trapped in their homes) and Davnant was traditionally considered to be the dirtiest and slippery-with mid-speed and fast turns. The roads are laid in the forest area, so the characteristic element of the landscape is the heaps of logs prepared for export by logging companies. In these logs, the driver must be doubly cautious: and it is not only the fact that the price of error increases-it is known that the carrying forest has the ability to make slippery ground slippery ground. The "sheikdaune" (a test site that does not set off the rally) on Hirvonen's car has had problems with the brakes-Ford engineers argue that after the replacement of the main brake cylinder, these problems should not come up in the Truth, and there are nuances in this story. All "well-forgotten" special sections should drive away on Thursday and Friday-and Mikko Hirvonen said in pre-start interviews that the race is not going to take any chances in the first days of the race. And it's going to start on Saturday or Sunday at all. But in Sunday's program-three special districts: short (4.3 km) Monument and the most "mixed" (ground alternating with the ground) Hafwai and Krihan, where Lebe KHirvonen was put to the shoulder two years ago. A stock of eight points means that the Frenchman is not required to be faster than his rival. Even if Hirvonen finishes first and shows you the first time. The powerstage (the most recent special area, for which the three most rapid crews earn points in total set-off), Lébou is enough to be the second to win the championship with more wins. Of course, Hirvonen is too early to fall, because anything can happen. But in the victory of the Finns, it is hard to believe when, on the question "Do you feel stronger than the decisive race of 2009?" the driver replies, "I think, yes-now I am more relaxed and do not have such a strong pressure as before" Maybe all these excuses-or maybe Mikko does not really believe that he can defeat the seven-time champion? Comrade Loeb on the team of Sebastien Ojé on the eve of the race promised to help his leader in the fight for the title, but in fact took off from the track at the first squad.