|
 |
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Rallye de France - Tour de Corse
Production Car World Rally Championship Rd.7
17 to 19 Oct. 2003 |
|
|
PCWRC Home | |
|
| Itinerary | |||
| Entry List | |||
| Course Map | |||
| Results | |||
| Preview | |||
| Leg1 Report | |||
 |
Leg2 Report | ||
| Leg3 Report | |||
| Gallery |
|
Production Car World Rally Championship (PCWRC) Rd.7, Information
End of Day 2 Sees Arai up to 3rd, Rowe 4th
Leg2 Event News
18 Oct. 2003 
Leg 2 on the second day of the Tour de Corse, the last race of the 2003 PCWRC, included six stages comprising three repeated stages run to the east of Ajaccio. The stages were 8.64km, 15.42km and 40.94km long. The drivers took the first two stages consecutively before returning for a service, followed by the longest stage and another service, a pattern which was then repeated.Tyre choice was going to have a big impact on times over such a long distance. Moreover, early morning was overcast with patches of standing water following overnight rain. This had the teams poring over weather data during the morning service trying to pick the correct tyres. Toshi Arai went for dry tyres with added cuts while Martin Rowe and Stig Blomqvist decided on rain tyres. The weather forecast was for continued cloud in the morning with possible showers in the afternoon, while the low temperatures of 15°C degrees early on meant that the road surface was not going to warm up without any sunshine. The order after SS7, the first of the day, was Sola, McShea, Kulig and Arai, just like the day before, with Rowe coming in sixth behind Blomqvist. There were some breaks in the clouds and the sun even showed its face occasionally, but then the Service Park area was wrapped in dark clouds and it began to rain. SS8 was completely wet according to the radio data from the crews. The order after this stage was Sola, McShea, Kulig followed by Rowe, Blomqvist and Arai. The heavy rain was making it tough for Arai to control his machine with his cut dry tyres, but he managed to hang on to 4th place overall despite hitting the rear right of his car after a half-spin. 
"It was raining so hard on SS8, I couldn't see even with the wipers on full speed", said Arai after the leg. "I was on cut dry tyres, which made things really tough. I couldn't turn on slow corners due to understeer so I was busy controlling the car, and I did hit the back once. McShea and the others changed just their front tyres to rain tyres before SS8." At the next service his team replaced his rear combination lamp and made sure his bumper wouldn't drop off.Rowe said, "I didn't push like yesterday, I just drove safely while trying not to fall back too much. But the rain in SS8 was terrible and I couldn't drive properly even on intermittent tyres. Apart from that nothing went wrong, and there are no problems with the car.” It was wet competition tyres again for SS9, the longest of the rally. This time Arai finished second behind Sola after changing his suspension settings and getting the right tyres for the rain. The result moved him up to third overall, ahead of Kulig who was slow out of the service and suffered penalties of 1 minute 40 seconds. Arai was now keen to close the 1 minute 7 second gap on second placed McShea. "At last my suspension settings seem to match", said Arai. “The car is handling better, even on tight corners. This afternoon looks like rain again so I’ll be closing the gap soon. Although Sola was all alone up front, he was by no means having the perfect rally. He was seven minutes late coming out of the service before SS10 and received a penalty of 70 seconds, but having built such a big lead he still held overall first place. Meanwhile, Arai managed to keep Kulig back and finish the stage in third place to remain third in the rally. Rowe drove at a measured pace to keep his overall fifth position, but engine trouble spelled the end of the race for Patrick Richard of Subaru Rally Team Canada, who had been driving well in ninth place in the Production Car World Rally Championship until SS8. 
In SS11, Sola suffered a burst tyre, but although the 1 minute 30 seconds he lost cut deeply into his big lead, he was still 1 minute ahead of McShea and 1 minute 25 seconds ahead of Arai. Meanwhile Arai was unable to close on McShea after bumping his rear left corner again like in the morning. "After getting information about the rain, I tried with a combination of cut dry tyres on the front and intermittent tyres on the back", said Arai later, "But the forecast was wrong and Stage 10 was mostly dry while SS11 was half wet. This time I had problems with oversteering. The course became muddy on SS11 and there was a scary moment when the back end slid and I hit the same part as this morning." His rival Rowe said, "Today was really tough. The conditions just kept changing. It's difficult to drive at your own pace when there's no target, so I used Colsoul's times as a marker. Who knows what will happen next? There's a long way to go."The best time in SS12, the last stage of the day, was recorded by Sola. Arai was not far behind, finishing Leg 2 in third place overall after almost catching second placed McShea. Rowe took fourth place as Kurig slipped back to seventh. Now only the four stages of Leg 3 remain in this year's Tour de Corse. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
