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With the World Rally Championship coming to a close, it was Jari-Matti Latvala who won the last round of the 2011 season. Rally Great Britain was expected to be an explosive event, courtesy the fight between Sebastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen for the championship. It was the Finn who finally took top honours in the driver’s championship.
The final day saw both Loeb and Latvala locked in a battle for the top spot with the Frenchmen claiming his eighth title when Mikko Hirvonen retired on Friday morning. With the opening stage win going to Jari-Matti, it was certain that things were going to heat up during the day’s proceeding, but unfortunately a head on collision between Loeb and a motorist meant that the Frenchmen had to retire, leaving Mads Ostberg taking second place followed by team-mate Henning Solberg. He hung on to the final podium place despite Meeke narrowing a deficit of 45 seconds to 1.8s only to suffer a spin on the rally-closing Power Stage in his MINI John Cooper Works WRC.
Earlier, in the Rally de Espana, Sebastien Loeb once again stamped his supremacy by winning the event for the seventh time and thereby helping Citroen claim the FIA manufacturer’s, also for the seventh time despite Sebastien Ogier exit from fifth place during the penultimate stage with an engine fault. It was Jari-Matti Latvala who began the final day in a strong second place as this was his best performance on asphalt. However, with the growing proximity between Loeb and Hirvonen in the Driver Standing, the Finnish driver had to back off incurring a two-minute time penalty giving way to Mikko to grab second place and ensure the much needed points to keep the fight alive for the Championship. Following this move, Jari had to settle for a third place finish. Meanwhile Dani Sordo gave thousands of Spanish fans something to cheer about as he finished fourth for MINI John Cooper Works WRC. |
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New Recruits
For 2012 and 2013 season, Citroen have signed on Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen who would be joining Sebastien Loeb to lead to the charge. They would be replacing Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia. |
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World Champion Casey Stoner could not have finished the season any better, after winning the final race of the season in Valencia in spectacular fashion in a race to the line with Ben Spies. With this podium, Stoner celebrates his 16th podium finish of the year, equaling the record for most podiums in a single season in the premier class, previously achieved by Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo. Alongside Stoner and Spies on the podium was Repsol Honda team mate Andrea Dovizioso, who finished third in the race and also wrapped up third place in the Championship. Dani Pedrosa, who was also fighting for the podium until the last five laps, crossed the finish line in fifth position and finished the 2011 MotoGP World Championship in fourth place.
The riders took to the grid with slicks and on the warm up lap, drops of rain appeared, hinting at a potentially thrilling race. Stoner pulled away from the start and at one point had an advantage of nine seconds ahead of team mates Dovizioso and Pedrosa, who were jostling for position until lap 23. On lap 24, a new race began as it started to rain more heavily. Spies overtook Pedrosa and Dovizioso, and with two laps remaining, Stoner made a mistake after engaging neutral instead of first gear and Spies took the lead. Stoner tracked him closely and then took a slightly different line coming out of the last corner of the final lap, and his Honda RC212V drove him to the finish line first, just 0.015 seconds ahead of the American.
Dovizioso and Pedrosa enjoyed a tough but clean fight however, in the final laps Andrea adapted to the rain better taking his seventh podium of the year and with it celebrated his best Championship classification in his MotoGP career with third position.
This has been a fantastic season for the Repsol Honda Team who celebrate the ‘Triple Crown’ after adding the Team Championship (with 528 points compared to Yamaha’s 446 points) to the riders’ and Constructor’s titles already won in Australia. The team will return to the Valencia track on Tuesday in the first official testing day for 2012. Riders Dani Pedrosa and Casey Stoner will take part in the two day test.
Meanwhile, Casey Stoner picked up his 2011 FIM MotoGP World Championship trophy in Valencia on Sunday evening, when the traditional end of season Awards Ceremony took place at the Auditori Mar Rojo de L’Oceanogràfic in the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciencies. |
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Indian rookie Aditya Patel ended his quest in the Scirocco R-Cup by finishing sixth in the final round which was held at Hockenheim recently. The Chennai racer closed the 2011 season with tally of 319 points thereby finishing 5th in the overall standing in the championship table. In fact he has become the first Indian driver to have succeeded in a European Touring Car series with such precision.
Earlier during the race weekend, Aditya set the third fastest time during the 30 minute free practice session but his form ran out during qualifying due to wrong selection of tyres. The young lad could not do much as he qualified 12th out of the 26 cars that made-up the starting grid. It was an action packed race as the top 6 drivers were battling it out for positions, and Aditya steadily made his way back up the order, setting the fastest lap of the race. In fact during last lap, he came very close to grabbing a podium place but an intense battle with Stefano Proetto meant that he would have to settle for 6th place. While ahead of him, it was D. Lloyd who won the race followed by D. Trebing in second and O.Nilsson in third place respectively.
“In this race I had to fight extremely hard to make my way up the grid knowing that this will determine my overall champion standing in the Scirocco R-Cup 2011 .To set the fastest lap of the finale was a highlight. Overall, it has been an excellent year and I am grateful to Volkswagen Motorsport for giving me this opportunity. To finish in the top five of such a highly acclaimed championship is great for my career and I am really looking forward to what next year has in store for me.”, said a delighted Aditya.
Meanwhile fellow countryman Sailesh Bolisetti competing in his first season finished fifteenth in the overall championship standing of Scirocco R-Cup 2011. |
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Lucas Auer won rounds 13 and 14 of the JK Asia Racing series held at the Buddh International Racing Circuit in Greater Noida (NCR). The event, which was a support race for the inaugural Formula One race in India, saw the Australian driver lift up the Rookie Cup after managing to grab two pole positions followed by a win in Race 1.
Auer led the race from start to finish without having to face much competition as guest driver Lorenzo Camplese and Aqif Ikhwan were locked in a two way battle for second place. Towards the middle half of the race, Ikhwan tried making a move on turn 5 where he touched the rear tyre of Camplese resulting in his front wing coming off. This incident allowed Nabil Jeffri to pass both the drivers and grab second place for that particular moment.
In an attempt to catch up with the leader, Nabil put in the fastest lap of the race but unfortunately lost out on the last lap when he made a mistake by taking a turn too wide resulting in a spin. This promoted Camplese to second position followed by Jeffri in third. Meanwhile the mid section of the pack too saw loads of action with Llyas finishing fourth ahead of Padayachee in fifth followed by Khushlani in sixth and Chang in seventh place respectively.
The second race of the weekend saw Lucas once again take the podium speed away to the finishing line, setting the fastest lap of the day in the process. Malaysian driver Afiq Ikhwan overtook Camplese to grab second position on the podium. Jeffri and Camplese who were locked in a fight for third place for majority of the race lost out at the last moment due to a contact between the two resulting in Irfan going past them to claim third position. Camplese crossed the line fourth followed by Jeffri in fifth and Padayachee in sixth place respectively.
Other Indian contestants – Sarosh Hataria, Rahil Noorani, Sandeep Kumar, Mohit Ahuja and Shashank Ravishankar completed the finishers for the day in sixteenth to twentieth respectively. The success of the event was not only a proud moment for India but also for us as an automobile magazine as we were visible courtesy of autoX stickers that were stuck on six Mecco Motorsport team cars that were a part of the race weekend.
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