MOTORSPORT: The great rallying double whammy

One of this month’s great rallies, the Dakar, is coming to its climax, while the other, the Monte Carlo, is about to usher in the new era of world championship rallying.

The course for the ninth Dakar in South America since terrorism fears drove the annual marathon out of Africa has had the heaviest rains and flooding in 40 years in some places, landslides, stage cancellations, shortenings and re-routings, as well as the usual sweltering temperatures.

Having started in Paraguay and gone into Bolivia, only two stages remain now in Argentina. While the field will cover almost 1500km over the final two days, barely 350km of it will be competitive – about 290km tonight, Australian time, in the leg from San Juan to Rio Cuarto, and then just 64km of the last day into the finish Buenos Aires.

Peugeot’s two-wheel-drive 3008 DKRs are running 1-2-3, with the Toyota Hilux driven by Spaniard Nani Roma more than an hour off the lead and that of South African Giniel De Villiers another 42 minutes back, followed by three X-Raid MINIs.

‘Monsieur Dakar’ Stephane Peterhansel is on the cusp of a 13th victory – his seventh on four wheels after six on motorcycles – leading nine-time WRC champion Sebastien Loeb by almost six minutes.

However, 50km of the competition tonight in the Cordoba region is described as 'WRC-like tracks' which may better suit Loeb, in only his second Dakar, although Peterhansel is the proven stayer in this ultimate torture test.

He is happy to fight it out with French compatriot Loeb to the end.

On last night’s 449km stage in Argentina, from Chilecito to San Juan, Peterhansel crashed into a Slovenian motorcyclist Simon Marcic, who was backtracking after getting lost.

The rider suffered a broken leg and Peterhansel lost a lot of time attending to him while awaiting the medical helicopter, but organisers gave the French superstar back 14 minutes at the end of the day, making him the stage winner over Loeb by almost seven and a half minutes.

“It was a really complicated stage with a lot of navigation in the river beds – everybody was completely lost,” Peterhansel said.

“Marcic was in reverse and just when he saw me he braked and crashed and I stopped on him. I saw that his leg was broken but he was still conscious.

“We stayed for about 15 or 20 minutes with him to wait for the  helicopter. “After it was really complicated to restart, to drive with a good speed. It wasn't an easy day.”

Loeb reckoned he could not have done much better on the stage. “I think it was impossible to go any faster,” he said.

The third-placed Peugeot is being driven by another Frenchman, Cyril Depres, a five-time Dakar winner on two wheels. He’s 20 minutes behind Loeb.

The fourth 3008 DKR that was in the hands of Spanish legend Carlos Sainz was a retirement in the middle of last week.

KTM is poised to extend its long-running monopoly on motorcycle victory despite its defending champion rider, Australia’s Toby Price, being an early casualty with a broken left leg.

Price’s British teammate Sam Sunderland is 30 minutes clear of KTM’s Austrian star, Matthias Walkner, with the challenges of Husqvarna’s Chilean Pablo Quintanilla and Honda’s Frenchman Jean Barriga seemingly thwarted.

A whole new world in the WRC
No sooner will the Dakar be over than the spotlight will be on the Monte Carlo Rally, starting next Thursday with new-look machinery and marking the return of a Japanese manufacturer to the WRC for the first time since the global financial crisis.

Among the 75 entries for the most famous of WRC events in snow, ice and mountains are 10 cars from the four manufacturers vying for outright honours.

Volkswagen is gone after its four years of domination but it is still paying the salaries of its drivers now in other teams – top gun Sebastien Ogier at Ford team M-Sport, Jari-Matti Latvala at Toyota and Andreas Mikkelsen in a second-tier Skoda.

Citroen is back full-time with its new C3, led by Northern Irishman Kris Meeke, while Hyundai retains its trio in i20 Coupes, with Belgian Thierry Neuville and New Zealander Hayden Paddon vying to be the Korean manufacturer’s main man.

The 1.6-litre cars now are wider and with more spectacular aerodynamics, bigger turbo restrictors while keeping existing boost limits, and active centre differentials are back.

Ogier has got his way on the controversial starting order that denied him complete ascendancy last year. Now the top drivers will start in championship order only on day one of rallies, while on days two and three they will start in the reverse order of the previous day’s classification.

There are more points to be gained on the final ‘power stage’ of events, to be awarded on a 5-4-3-2-1 basis now rather than just 3-2-1.

And manufacturers can now nominate three drivers to score points for them, although only the results of their best two at each rally will count towards the manufacturers’ championship.

Three-time champion Toyota’s return with its Yaris comes after an absence since 1999 and its driver line-up is entirely Finnish, with veteran tester Juho Hanninen and the younger Esapekka Lappi the teammates to Latvala, the most experienced driver in the championship.

Not surprising perhaps with the cars being built and prepared by Tommi Makinen Racing in central Finland, with only the engine work being done at Toyota’s traditional European motorsport base in Cologne.

M-Sport has impressive Estonian Ott Tanak to keep the pressure on Ogier, who this week crashed one of the Ford Fiestas testing in the French Alps, with damage to the left rear wheel and suspension.

Meeke made the point that with this new-generation of WRC cars “you really have to be on your game, every metre, to keep on top of them”.

Which is why there are expectations that this year’s WRC will produce a show reminiscent of the spectacular but dangerous Group B era of the mid-1980s.

The nuts and bolts on the new cars
Here’s what WRC.com says will make the 2017 cars so special.

“They are 10kg lighter and 55mm wider than their predecessors. They are also 100 per cent more aggressive-looking thanks to the new aerodynamic kits. At the front, a splitter protrudes 60mm further forward, while a rear diffusor stretches back an extra 30mm.

"Wheel arches are wider to accommodate the extra track, and an enormous rear wing sits 50mm above the roofline to provide downforce and extra grip at the rear. Around the car, additional grills and ducts manage airflow to keep brakes and engine running cool.

"Inside, the cars boast more safety features than ever. The thickness of energy-absorbing foam surrounding drivers is up from 200mm to 240mm, while repositioned seats, wrap-around head protectors, strengthened door panels and improvements to roll cage design all play their part in protecting the occupants.

“Up front, the 1.6-litre four-cylinder turbo engine remains, but widening the turbo restrictor from 33mm to 36mm means power is up from around 310bhp to 380bhp. Limiting turbo boost to 2.5-bar keeps maximum torque in line the previous figure of around 430 Nm.

"The gearbox is a six-speed sequential unit, upgraded to cope with the extra power and operated by a hydraulic paddle shift. There are passive diffs front and rear, but for the first time since 2010 the transmission now features an active centre differential to allow the driver to tune the car’s handling to different conditions.”

One week to find a saviour for Manor
Next Friday (January 20) has been set as the deadline for the Manor Formula 1 team to be rescued if it is to take part in the world championship starting in Melbourne on the last weekend of March.

Autosport has reported that Manor’s 2017 car is ready to go into production but that, due to the team’s operating company Just Racing Services being in administration, the production of the parts cannot start as the administrators have blocked spending to protect the creditors.

As anticipated, triple champion manufacturer Mercedes has lost its technical director, Paddy Lowe, seemingly to Williams which uses its customer powerplants.

Retired reigning world champion driver Nico Rosberg’s replacement still hasn’t been named, and heroic Italian Alex Zanardi – the ex-F1 driver with prosthetic legs who has become a Paralympic hand-cycling champion – has suggested that 37-year-old MotoGP superstar Valentino Rossi should be the man rather than 25-year-old Valtteri Bottas, who is certain to be released from Williams at the right price.

Renault parted ways with its team principal Frederic Vasseur this week after a six-month “marriage” and seemingly won’t bother replacing him, with Cyril Abiteboul calling the shots mainly from the factory and Daniel Ricciardo’s one-time race engineer becoming Renault’s chief race engineer.

Three Aussies in NZ’s Toyota Racing Series
The important open-wheeler Toyota Racing Series gets underway at Christchurch’s Ruapuna circuit this weekend with 20 young drivers from 11 countries.

The field includes Australians Luis Leeds, Thomas Randle and Harry Hayek.

British star Lando Norris did not come back to defend his title after earlier indications he would. He’s already working with the McLaren F1 team.

However, 18-year-old Brazilian Pedro Piquet, son of triple world champion Nelson, has returned.

The cars have a Tatuus chassis, 1.8-litre Toyota engines producing about 160kWs and running on 85 per cent ethanol bio-fuel, with six-speed transaxle with sequential paddle gearshift.

Each the five rounds comprises three races, with the four events after Ruapuna at Invercargill’s Teretonga, Tony Quinn’s Hampton Downs in the Waikato, Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park at Taupo (for the Denny Hulme Memorial Trophy) and Circuit Chris Amon at Manfeild for the NZ Grand Prix.