The Rally of New Zealand has just finished and the winning margin was .3 second - Gronholm beating Loeb by this, the slenderest of margins. It was not that long ago that the WRC started timing stages to a tenth of a second and this result shows how important that decision was. Competition in the top echelon of world rallying is currently that close. Was it always that way? I don’t think so. For example here are some results from UK International rallies in the period covered within Photohistoric.com:
1965 RAC Rally 1st Aaltonen/Ambrose [57]
2nd Makinen/Easter +188s
1966 Scottish Rally 1st Fall/Wood [64]
2nd Larsson/Lundblad +321s
1968 RAC Rally 1st Lampinen/Davenport [87]
2nd Orrenius/Schroderheim +330s
1969 RAC Rally 1st Kallstrom/Haggborn
2nd Eriksson/Johansson +148s
1968 Scottish Rally 1st Clark/Porter [64]
2nd Ytterbring/Persson +627s
1969 Scottish Rally 1st Lampinen/Hertz [70]
2nd Cowan/Coyle +583s
1970 Scottish Rally 1st Culcheth/Syer
2nd Hopkirk/Nash +412s
1970 RAC Rally 1st Kallstrom/Haggbom [82]
2nd Orrenius/Stone +255s
1972 RAC Rally 1st Clark/Mason
2nd Blomquist/Hertz +205s [72]
(Incidentally, the figures in brackets represent the number of stages on each of the listed rallies. The 2007 Rally of New Zealand had just 18!)
In their time these events were just as hard fought and competitive as those of today and this was most particularly the case, if one compared individual stage times throughout an event. Mechanical problems from the stresses of driving long distances, in some cases over 1500 miles per rally with multiple stages, probably now make the results seem less close than they actually were. Remember, these events were not of the type we now see in the WRC where practising and note taking is taken for granted, where rallying rarely takes place in the dark, where stages are often repeated and where central service points are organised to keep cars in the rally. Never was their a rule that allowed crews to retire on one day of a rally and rejoin on the next…… and still score points!
So a competitiveness comparison between the 70s and this year’s WRC stacks up pretty well. Certainly the Escorts and Healeys of the past were great to watch, but then, so are the current crop of WRC cars. One can recall the prophets of doom for spectating when the dominance of the four wheel drive Audi Quattro, led people to believe that rallying would become boring. Were these the same people who said the same thing after the demise of the Group B cars?
Rallying continues to provide great entertainment and close, competitive rallies even if their formats have changed for the worst.
This year F1 has come up with a situation where any one of four drivers are in with a chance of victory at each race and ultimately the Championship itself. For the general media this has made it really interesting in that one of these is a rookie, one an ex-champion, and the other two are Ferrari drivers. Add to this "hissy-fits" between the drivers of the British team and allegations of spying towards this same team from the Italians and it is not difficult to see why F1 has been grabbing the headlines within the British media. To a degree this has hidden the fact that, like its counterpart in world motorsport, rallying, this year’s F1 season has been having one of the closest fought and competitive for ages. As this is written there have been 12 Grand Prix completed in 2007 and the average winning time over the second placed man is less than five seconds.
Have things improved over the years? If one removes one’s rose tinted spectacles and look back at the golden era involving Jimmy Clark, Graham Hill, Bruce McLaren, Jackie Stewart, Jochen Rindt and the like (typified by some of the photographs in Photohistoric.com) you will see that whatever one’s perception of this period, GP finishes were rarely close. For example:
1968 12 Grand Prix Average winning time +66 seconds
1969 11 Grand Prix Average winning time +40 seconds
1970 13 Grand Prix Average winning time +28 seconds
1971 11 Grand Prix Average winning time +21 seconds
1972 12 Grand Prix Average winning time +25 seconds
Five year average +36 seconds
(There were several victories over this period when the victor was over a lap ahead of the second placed car and for the above only the time of fastest lap has been included).
A major exception in the above period was the Italian Grand Prix in 1971 that saw the closest GP finish ever:
1st Peter Gethin 1h 18m 12.60s
2nd Ronnie Peterson 1h 18m 12.61s
3rd Francois Cevert 1h 18m 12.69s
4th Mike Hailwood 1h 18m 12.78s
5th Howden Ganley 1h 18m 13.21s
So, statistics……. these don’t prove anything really, but they possibly make interesting reading!
1965 RAC Rally 1st Aaltonen/Ambrose [57]
2nd Makinen/Easter +188s
1966 Scottish Rally 1st Fall/Wood [64]
2nd Larsson/Lundblad +321s
1968 RAC Rally 1st Lampinen/Davenport [87]
2nd Orrenius/Schroderheim +330s
1969 RAC Rally 1st Kallstrom/Haggborn
2nd Eriksson/Johansson +148s
1968 Scottish Rally 1st Clark/Porter [64]
2nd Ytterbring/Persson +627s
1969 Scottish Rally 1st Lampinen/Hertz [70]
2nd Cowan/Coyle +583s
1970 Scottish Rally 1st Culcheth/Syer
2nd Hopkirk/Nash +412s
1970 RAC Rally 1st Kallstrom/Haggbom [82]
2nd Orrenius/Stone +255s
1972 RAC Rally 1st Clark/Mason
2nd Blomquist/Hertz +205s [72]
(Incidentally, the figures in brackets represent the number of stages on each of the listed rallies. The 2007 Rally of New Zealand had just 18!)
In their time these events were just as hard fought and competitive as those of today and this was most particularly the case, if one compared individual stage times throughout an event. Mechanical problems from the stresses of driving long distances, in some cases over 1500 miles per rally with multiple stages, probably now make the results seem less close than they actually were. Remember, these events were not of the type we now see in the WRC where practising and note taking is taken for granted, where rallying rarely takes place in the dark, where stages are often repeated and where central service points are organised to keep cars in the rally. Never was their a rule that allowed crews to retire on one day of a rally and rejoin on the next…… and still score points!
So a competitiveness comparison between the 70s and this year’s WRC stacks up pretty well. Certainly the Escorts and Healeys of the past were great to watch, but then, so are the current crop of WRC cars. One can recall the prophets of doom for spectating when the dominance of the four wheel drive Audi Quattro, led people to believe that rallying would become boring. Were these the same people who said the same thing after the demise of the Group B cars?
Rallying continues to provide great entertainment and close, competitive rallies even if their formats have changed for the worst.
This year F1 has come up with a situation where any one of four drivers are in with a chance of victory at each race and ultimately the Championship itself. For the general media this has made it really interesting in that one of these is a rookie, one an ex-champion, and the other two are Ferrari drivers. Add to this "hissy-fits" between the drivers of the British team and allegations of spying towards this same team from the Italians and it is not difficult to see why F1 has been grabbing the headlines within the British media. To a degree this has hidden the fact that, like its counterpart in world motorsport, rallying, this year’s F1 season has been having one of the closest fought and competitive for ages. As this is written there have been 12 Grand Prix completed in 2007 and the average winning time over the second placed man is less than five seconds.
Have things improved over the years? If one removes one’s rose tinted spectacles and look back at the golden era involving Jimmy Clark, Graham Hill, Bruce McLaren, Jackie Stewart, Jochen Rindt and the like (typified by some of the photographs in Photohistoric.com) you will see that whatever one’s perception of this period, GP finishes were rarely close. For example:
1968 12 Grand Prix Average winning time +66 seconds
1969 11 Grand Prix Average winning time +40 seconds
1970 13 Grand Prix Average winning time +28 seconds
1971 11 Grand Prix Average winning time +21 seconds
1972 12 Grand Prix Average winning time +25 seconds
Five year average +36 seconds
(There were several victories over this period when the victor was over a lap ahead of the second placed car and for the above only the time of fastest lap has been included).
A major exception in the above period was the Italian Grand Prix in 1971 that saw the closest GP finish ever:
1st Peter Gethin 1h 18m 12.60s
2nd Ronnie Peterson 1h 18m 12.61s
3rd Francois Cevert 1h 18m 12.69s
4th Mike Hailwood 1h 18m 12.78s
5th Howden Ganley 1h 18m 13.21s
So, statistics……. these don’t prove anything really, but they possibly make interesting reading!
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