rallyman

A new paint scheme and darkened headlights have given the 2002 a meaner look for this rally season! Along with slight modifications (upgrading of existing parts because last season the Focus suffered a couple of times from engine failure and unreliability), this should prove to be the best chance yet of Ford winning the drivers/manufacturers championship. So far, it's worked in general with all Ford drivers finished Rally Monte Carlo (apart from Colin's exhaust and engine problems on Day 2....he did however grab 4th position from Gronholm after being down approximately 30 second with a day to go!)

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rallyman

And another..........

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rallyman

Side shot......

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FM

Yummy.. Good to see a big Ford logo on the side too.. :s4

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FoMoCo4eva

jeez it looks good...wrc dont muck around do they. Does the season always start so early?

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rallyman

no there's no mucking around with wrc. organisers reckon that one day it'll get as big as F1. Put it this way, the Ford budget when it comes to WRC is US$90 million per year.

The season always starts this time of the year in Monte Carlo. There's only a month or so break from UK (last event of the year) to Monte Carlo. Mainly because of the huge transport and logistics that happens during the year moving everything around (unlike F1, almost all transport between countries happens via sea freight (F1 almost always is air freighted)).

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HP Dude

It really is a sexy looking car, isn't it?

motomk

I saw this on the TV today or yesterday. One question for you Rallyman........I know this is the Tarmac prepared version..ie bigger wheels....lower suspension etc. But This car just looks lower in the roof line than previous ones I've seen.

Also on the Citreon (which I understand won the Rally but is subject to a time penalty or something)....Is this car finally going to compete in the whole championship or is it still not going overseas???

And did you catch the Paris-Dakar rally on SBS yesterday?....Got to love those Rally trucks.....KAMAZ's, TATRA's and DAF's....
Mitsubishi had a really bad time:s3 taking out the top 8 places. There was a real nice SEAT car which was a deisel.

motomk

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HSE2

I hope they bring a performance version out here

rallyman

There's have been no panel changes to the Focus as far as I know. Maybe there has been suspension changes which makes the car sit differently (the Focus has never been fast on tarmac as other cars so they could have made improvements there).

Citroen are only going to compete in a limited season. Basically, from memory, they're going to compete in tarmac rallies and two gravel rallies, one of them being the Acropolis in Greece (which is the most demanding of the gravel rallies). This is basically their line-up last season. Would be a shame because Sebastian Loeb (who won the Monte Carlo rally) is only in his second rally ever in a WRC car. I'd like to see how fast he is on gravel!

As for Paris Dakar rally, no I didn't catch it on SBS. To be perfectly honest, I'm not that interested in P-D rally. WRC is a totally different story as you can tell :s1

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