Rally Portugal / Rally review
Torrential rain prior to the event spoiled the recce and made conditions tricky.
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In the days preceding the actual rally rain poured
down in enormous amounts. During recce it
seemed we were watching the world championship powerboat racing. The organizers therefore had no other option than to postpone recce,
much to the regret of Mikko Hirvonen. He already
had completed his second passage of Ourique
(Stage 3 and 6), when recce was stopped. When
recce was resumed he was not allowed to do part
of his recce in better conditions. Although the FIA
allowed him to do a third pass it was Clerk of
The Course Pedro Almeida who said no to the
request. Thus making it impossible for the Finn
to see the stage in normal circumstances. “This
is silly,” Hirvonen expressed his thoughts. “The
conditions should be the same to everyone. And
we have been deprived of the possibility to see
the latest situation, that is a serious safety issue.”
Drivers were banned from talking to TV crews Saturday morning.
TV in trouble
The recce issue was not the only dispute in Portugal. On Saturday morning all manufacturer
drivers were told not to speak to WRC TV. This
is the result of a difference of opinions between
the manufacturer teams and the WRC promoter.
The nature of the dispute did not become entirely clear, but the bottom line was that the teams
were denied access to TV footage shot on Friday
by WRC TV. The reason was they first had to
sign a contract with the WRC Promoter. We don’t
know the terms of this contract, but it’s clear that
the teams weren’t happy about them and unanimously decided to make one front. This resulted
in the ban on TV interviews. An absolute silly
situation that shows there is still quite a bit of
mistrust between the parties involved. This could
be disastrous to the sport. These are two of the
most important parties in the whole WRC circus.
If they don’t trust each other how can we build on
a strong WRC? Especially as other fields (ERC,
WRX) are doing so well. Not long after this clash
WRC Promoter GmbH invited all parties to join
them during a workshop in Munich. There was
a positive buzz among the participants but nothing solid was presented but “all relevant matters
were put on the table.” As VW boss Jost Capito
phrased it. The most concrete thing that came
out of this meeting was that this meeting was a
kick-off of a “a regular and on-going consultation
process for all stakeholders,” so the press release said. We can only hope this to be true and
that this on-going consultation process results
in some good agreements that help the sport to
grow. And that embarrassing situations like the
TV dispute in Portugal don’t happen again.