Drama at Wales

 Round 1 of the Wales Rally GB saw a new winner and a whole bunch of drama.

To start off we saw the entry of one of the fastest drivers in rbr Tommi Makkinen, a very well known figure for his speed and as well what he's accomplished in the FIA RALLY STAR as well as his driving in his car in the real world.

Day 1 saw an unexpected turn of events for the previous rally winner Jody Cleenwerck. Jody suffered an unfortunate technical issue with his game crashing at the first split of the Super Special Stage 1. Tommi Makkinen lead after day 1 in the Production Class as everyone excepted, which is very close on pace with the S2000's. Our overall leader after the days action was Jesse Turunen, as rally driver who is extremely quick and lead the opening days action over the defending champion Aleksi Paakkinen. In third we had Henri Haikka with the Italian Marco Piardi in 4th with Makkinen in 5th.

Day 2 and 3 saw the return of the South African. Cleenwerck won 5 out of the 6 stages of the 2 days, sending a statement to the rest of the competition. 

On day 2 our overall leader was still Jesse Turunen in the Subaru Impreza GDA WRC'03. Setting consistently fast times in the days 3 stages. In second we had the Italian Marco Piardi, who displayed what experience can do in these tricky conditions. Brazilian Bruno Kruger steadily making his way up onto the podium after a mistake when choosing to drive the 2 gravel stages on day 1 with slicks. During day 2 we also saw mistakes from Makkinen and Paakkinen, both going off the road loosing ampal amounts of time.

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Day 3 we saw the appearance of snow on the days stages, with Cleenwerck taking all of the stage wins that day, but the Top 3 were not concerned about him. In the battle for glory instead of pride, the Top 3 were seperated by 17s with Kruger breathing down Turunen's neck as they were only seperated by 9 tenths of a second. Makkinen also suffered a roll on SS8 trying to gain back time after his mistake on SS3.

Day 4 and the Final day. During day four's action we saw Cleenwerck's stage win streak end after he lost the Fiesta's rear wing on SS10. But he still managed to win one more stage (SS11) and finishing 28th in class and 75th overall. A decent recovery considering the situation he was in.

In other news all of the focus and pressure was on Jesse Turunen as he was Day 3's overnight leader coming into day 4. But drama struck for Turunen as he hit what is presumed to either be Cleenwerck's rear wing on the apex of a corner or a rock, causing Turunen to spin and damage the car, no fault of his own. Things didn't stop there for Turunen as he had an even worse time on SS12 as the car's rear left wheel hub broke causing the car to handle terrible as he commented on the stage end. With all this Turunen still managed to finish the rally, but unfortunately lost too much time to keep himself on the podium as he fell to 4th overall. 

The fight for podium spot was on for Paakkinen as he quietly made his way up in 4th overall after the drama that everyone else faced on SS10. Paakkinen later just brought the car home to the finish ending the day and rally in 3rd overall.

Now the battle was on for Makkinen and Kruger. On SS10 Makkinen set a blistering time halfing the gap down to Kruger. But Kruger would later beat him on SS11 by only 2s. Makkinen gave it his all on the final stage winning it by 11.2s over Kruger, but this was unfortunately not enough, with this he finished an unlikely 2nd place overall with Bruno Kruger taking the win by only 3 seconds.

Until next round in Austria, it's goodbye for now.