We let the drivers talk us through an eventful Rally Japan which saw a Citroen out in front and a Frenchman on the top of the podium, which all sounds predictable until you discover it wasn't Sébastien Loeb...
Petter Solberg, the 2003 World Rally Champion, had fever. But it wasn’t Saturday night and it wasn’t good. “I’m shivering and I feel like shit,” he pointed out on Thursday. Hardly the best way to begin a World Championship rally.
But in the end of the first day of Rally Japan, the feverish Citroen privateer found himself in the lead.
Not that the going was easy. “It’s like a motocross track in places!” said Ford’s Jari-Matti Latvala after seeing the rough gravel stages.
All the drivers kept on pushing, with the exception of Ford’s Khalid Al Qassimi: out after an accident in the first two kilometres of stage one. “I’ve certainly done longer rallies before…” reflected Al Qassimi, whose day job is being a sheikh from Abu Dhabi.
By the end of the opening day Solberg had a nine-second lead over Ford’s Mikko Hirvonen in second.
'I’m shivering and I feel like shit' – Petter Solberg
That was until Solberg picked up a 10-second jump-start penalty on day two. “I never jump the start!” protested the Norwegian. Apart from on this occasion, clearly.
So the lead then went to Citroen’s Sébastien Ogier. “I’m quite surprised,” said the young Frenchman. “It’s my first time in Japan with a World Rally Car, so if you had told me before the start that I would be leading I think I would have laughed.”
But he was pretty keen to relinquish the lead again on Saturday so that he wouldn’t be first on the road on the final day. Solberg was back in front, with the top three covered by less than six seconds. “There are no games for me,” he said. “I go flat out everywhere.”
Maybe he did, but his car didn’t. Suspension problems meant that he dropped behind Ogier on the final day, with the Red Bull-backed Frenchman going on to take the second rally win of his career.
Solberg secured the runner-up spot ahead of Latvala, who drove like a hero on the final day to claim another podium. “It was actually the first time I’d driven properly all rally,” said the Finn after beating Citroen’s Dani Sordo in fourth and Sébastien Loeb in fifth.
Do not adjust your set. You read that right the first time: Loeb was absent from the podium for the first time in over a year. Even more strangely he was at a loss to explain exactly why. “I just never had a particularly good feeling with the car,” said the six-time World Champion. “We changed the differential on Sunday, but it actually made things worse.”
Or could the problem be more that Loeb would rather win the title on home territory in France, at the next rally on the calendar? “Sure, that would be nice!” he said, as if he had only just thought of it.
Another one of Red Bull’s stars, Kimi Raikkonen, had an early bath after sliding off on the first stage of the final day when he misheard a pace note. “Could happen to anyone,” he concluded before climbing into the back of an incongruously small hire car and heading to the airport. Sayonara from Japan.
Want more?
- Interview with Kimi Raikkonen
- Making sushi with Sordo
- Race shopping karts with Kimi
- More from the Rally Japan
© McKlein/Citroen Sport
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