Preview Neste Oil Rally Finland
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The Neste Oil Rally Finland, also known as the Rally of 1000 Lakes, may have changed its name, but it remains the rally to win on the World Rally Championship. All the drivers want to win here.
The format might have altered for this season, two days instead of three, but the roads themselves remain largely the same as last year, with only six new kilometres on the route. And, like the other 304 kilometres of the route, those six will be jam-packed with rally-mad fans from across Europe.
And as much as the drivers want to win, the spectators are equally fanatic about the rally especially the angles at which the cars come into view; often with full opposite lock and two or three feet in the air as they deal with the latest in a string of corners on crests.
Summer wouldn't be summer without those crazy men and their flying machines.
So who's going to win?
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So who's going to win?
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Sebastien Loeb is the obvious favourite. Will he really throttle back and take second or third? We'll have to wait and see. It's fine in theory, but, like the Frenchman says himself, when the crash helmet pulled on, it brings a different mindset.
Winning the event last year will remove some of the pressure and local expectation from Hirvonen. He's shown he can do it, so anything other than back-to-back wins might be viewed as a failure from the Finnish media.
Jari-Matti Latvala has another year's experience under his belt - and there's no doubting the New Zealand winner's outright speed.
Petter Solberg could be the one to watch, however. He's in a good place on the road if the weather stays dry and the C4 WRC has certainly shown itself to be a good car on these stages. As for Loeb's team-mate Sebastien Ogier, in his first outing as a fully fledged member of the Citroën WRT is it too soon to expect him to challenge for victory on an event where experience is everything?
Beyond the main event, this rally will be a round of the Super 2000 World Rally Championship and the Production Car World Rally Championship, ensuring the action goes on all day on the stages.
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