{"id":8541,"date":"2014-11-16T14:42:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-16T12:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latvalamotorsport.com\/?p=8541"},"modified":"2025-12-03T12:46:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T10:46:52","slug":"wales-rally-gb-14-16-november-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latvalamotorsport.com\/en\/wales-rally-gb-14-16-november-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"Wales Rally GB 14 \u2013 16 November 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mud, problems and spruce twigs in Wales<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rally Wales was driven on again on slippery but this time on slightly revised roads. For Jari-Matti Latvala the second \u201dhome rally\u201d on this season brought the win of the Powerstage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Now when we have taken the win of the Powerstage in two competitions in a row, we should next win two rallies in a row, Latvala said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the opening day of the rally, stages of Gartheiniog (14,58 km), Dyfi (21,90 km), Hafren Sweet Lamb (23,55 km) and Maesnant (12,86 km) were driven twice. In the morning the road were covered by slippery mud. At the afternoon the sun dried the mud as sticky cover on the gravel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Latvala couldn\u2019t find the right kind of driving rhythm for the stages for the first driving time, and neither were the set up right. However, before the night break he managed to narrow the gap between Sebastien Ogier to only 6,6 seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 At the afternoon I focused on staying right lines, which gave good results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 In the morning I tried too hard. You just can\u2019t drive that fast in the conditions like these, Latvala summed up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Latvala and Ogier split the stage wins as half, 4-4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The opening stage of the second driving day, Clocaenog East, broked Latvala\u2019s dream of success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Coming to bend right at the end of long straight section was more slippery than I expected. I didn\u2019t have it on my pace notes. I braked too hard and stopped the engine. I couldn\u2019t start the engine immediately and the back of the car went to ditch. It took over three minutes to get the car back to the road, Latvala described the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rear spoiler of Latvala\u2019s WRC Polo broked when the spectator were pushing the car back to the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After that the front damper broked too, and when the chance to win the rally was lot, Latvala couldn\u2019t fnd the fighting spirit for the rest of the stages, not earlier than the last stage where he took the win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the final day of the rally Latvala set four fastest times and smiled after finishing the Powerstage. There was a big spruce twig hanging from the front spoiler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 It was on the middle of the road, I just couldn\u2019t avoid the hit. Not any crash caused it, although it was near to happen, Latvala recalled the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s focus was to get the good rhythm to drive on gravel and it was found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sebastien Ogier who had confirmed the championship earlier was the winner of the rally. Mikko Hirvonen who finished his rally career in Wales, was second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mud, problems and spruce twigs in Wales Rally Wales was driven on again on slippery but this time on slightly revised roads. For Jari-Matti Latvala the second \u201dhome rally\u201d on this season brought the win of the Powerstage. \u2013 Now when we have taken the win of the Powerstage in two competitions in a row, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8556,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2014-en","category-rally-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latvalamotorsport.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latvalamotorsport.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latvalamotorsport.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latvalamotorsport.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latvalamotorsport.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8541"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latvalamotorsport.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8568,"href":"https:\/\/latvalamotorsport.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8541\/revisions\/8568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latvalamotorsport.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latvalamotorsport.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latvalamotorsport.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latvalamotorsport.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}