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Latvala springs victor at Rally New Zealand |
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This year’s Rally New Zealand had a surprise winner, as Ford’s Jari-Matti Latvala took the honors to claim the event win – thus ending reigning champion, and championship leader, Loeb’s winning streak. The Ford driver overtook Citroen Junior World Rally Team driver, Sebastien Ogier, to grab first place by only 2.4 seconds.
Latvala and co-driver, Anttila, started the final stage
trailing Ogier by 6.2 seconds. However, a spin and stall by the Citroen driver proved pivotal, as Latvala made a trouble free run through the stage to claim the victory. Loeb, meanwhile, couldn’t continue his form and had an error prone rally. While he showed stunning pace on several occasions, more than one error over the course of the rally put him out of contention for the win. Nevertheless, he finished third, and retains a healthy lead in the championship – now with 36 points to his nearest rival, Latvala. Ford’s lead driver, Mikko Hirvonen, could only manage fourth place after choosing the wrong set-up on Friday’s stages, which cost him crucial positions.
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2003 world champion, Petter Solberg, had a serious crash on the final morning of the event. He was running in third place, and pushing for the lead when his privately entered Citroen C4 WRC collided hard with an electricity pylon – to the extent of bringing it down. Luckily, both Solberg and co-driver, Phil Mills, were unhurt in the crash.
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20 Drivers, 20 German machines – ready for a thrilling clash |
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The Polo Cup, co-sponsored by JK Tyre, promises to take Indian motorsport to the next level. It’s no wonder, then, that over 1,100 motorsport enthusiasts from all over the country participated in the selection process, which aimed to sift through the participants and bring the final list down to
20 lucky young drivers. The first race, on the 30th of May at the Shri Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex at Balewadi in Pune, will have already taken place by the time you read this – so, a preliminary pecking order will have been established. The other rounds of the championship will be run along with the 13th JK Tyre National Racing Championship.
The mammoth selection process got underway in the last week of March, and lasted until very recently – when the 20 finalists were declared. The outcome of these trials were only possible with the help of a team of experienced selectors, which comprised of a coach from the German Polo Cup, officials from Volkswagen and JK Tyre, a representative from FMSCI, well renowned racing instructor, Akbar Ebrahim, India’s guest F1 steward, Farhan Vora, and six-times National Champion, Rayomand Banerji.
The 1,100 applicants were initially whittled down to 102 particpants – and thereafter by a series of trial rounds, which even inluded competing with each other in the racing Polo’s to book their seat in the final 20. Drivers between the ages of 16-24 are allowed to participate in the series, which includes a mix of experienced drivers like Saran Vikram, and new faces like Alisha Abdullah. Being a new series, all the drivers will be raring to make an impression. The championship winner gets a seat in the European Polo Cup next year, so there’s a lot to play/race for.
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| Armaan finishes 5th in F2 in a brilliant fight! |
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The Formula 2 series has a long history of being one of the main feeder series to the pinnacle of motorsport – Formula 1. After a long gap, the series was restarted by the FIA in 2009. Young Indian talent, Armaan Ebrahim, whose been racing in the series since last year, had his best ever finish at the 3rd round of the 2010 championship at Monza in Italy.
All told, Armann had a tough weekend – he was running well initially, but only managed to qualify 7th for the first race on Saturday. However, he was hit by another competitor on the first lap itself, which meant he had to retire from Race 1. In qualifying
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for the second race, he could only manage 16th place due to being held up in heavy traffic. In the race, however, he showed steely determination – making up 3 places on the opening lap itself. Over the course of the race, Armaan made up several more places through some aggressive driving and impressive overtaking – at one point, even overtaking around the outside, with two wheels on the grass, of the superfast and famous Parabolica curve that leads onto the long front straight. This followed a collision during another intense battle – nevertheless, Armaan was able to finish in an impressive 5th place, which leaves him 7th in the championship with another 12 races to go at 6 venues for the 2010 championship.
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