ERC: Sata Rallye Acores / Rally review
37/44
Battle Royale
On the final day the stage
was set for an epic battle
between Sousa and Abbring
for victory. After Abbring’s
powersteering troubles Sousa held on to a 16.3 second
lead going into the final six
stages. On the first loop of
stages Sousa held his own
and even slightly increased
his lead over Abbring to 19
seconds. The stages had
been new for Abbring and
he fancied his chances on
the second run once he had
done them on speed before.
Abbring took 8 seconds and
then 6 more to reduce the
gap to just 5.1 seconds with
just the final stage to go.
Running in reverse order
Abbring was the first of the
two to tackle the stage and
his split times were much
faster than anyone else up
to that point. He seamed a
certain winner until Sousa’s
times were starting to come
in, even faster than Abbring!
At the finish line Sousa was
just over a second quicker
than Abbring and thus took
a well-deserved victory, his
first in the ERC. After pushing his car for a kilometre
out of the qualifying stage
on Wednesday due to sensor problems, being number
one at the end of it all was
more than he ever could
have wished for.
Live TV
The WRC world is currently buzzing
about format changes to accommodate live TV coverage. Rallies are decided over three days, not just a single
live televised stage and that makes it
difficult to understand for the mainstream audience. Also, it can happen
that one driver holds a massive lead
going into the final stage, taking away
the necessity to push and thus making for uninteresting television. That
may very well all be so, but the coverage Eurosport provided from the
Azores was no less than spectacular.
Four stages were broadcasted live on
Eurosport with three more live on the
website fiaerc.com. A combination of
on-boards, helicopter and road-side
cameras made for a great mix and
even when the helicopter shots were
impossible due to heavy fog, the nearly all greyed-out on-boards made for
fascinating TV. The sheer epicness
of the Sete Cidades stages, which
runs all the way around the Caldera
edge helps to provide some stunning
images as well of course. The final
day battle between Sousa and Abbring was also perfectly televised and
included two spectacular spins by Abbring, right there, live on TV. Perhaps
as lovers of the sport we are not entirely objective, but we feel television
just cannot really get any better than
this. Well done Eurosport!