Ten to Block

Being honest, we had prepared that joke for Dmitry before the season had started – when he managed to get a beautiful #33 for the entire year. But the final decision to "apply" the joke came when his first ever section of a world rally Dmitry and Anna completed just 9.9 seconds slower than the American driver and charismatic showman. But Ken is fighting in the manufacturers' level, and that result of the Russian crew placed them fourth in PWRC. Is that a sensation or now we have the full opportunity to evaluate the real speed of Dmitry?

          Let's say from the very beginning: we are not going to discuss all the intrigues of manufacturers WRC category – there is more than enough information about them even without ours. So just let's say only our first and general impressions.

          The new technical regulation and the 100% new versions of WR cars are promising us a good season full of surprises! What do we see right now from the beginning in Sweden? Something that we could hardly imagine for many years! The privateer, Norwegian Ostberg is leading the rally and he is ahead of works master Hirvonen for 24,8 seconds already! The third place goes at this moment to a privateer's Citroen, but let's remember that it is another Scandinavian ace Petter Solberg, who is that "privateer". And another sensation is non-turbocharged Skoda S2000 of Patrik Sandell on the fifth position in the general classification! PG Andersson, the one on somebody a lot of the fans had bet – lost a minute on the snow bank of SS2 and then lost another eternity while changing a wheel on SS3, so he is only 21st now. And the brilliant works Citroen duo, who had to clean the snow as the front-runners are not only 8th and 9th now, but they are losing over 1.5 minutes to Ostberg, that is really too much when only 65km of special stages are behind.

         The snow was falling almost all the night long, and in the morning one could find on his parked in the yard car about 8 cm of fresh snow. So we can imagine the condition of the morning stages easily. But the weather had changed again now, switching to the bright sun with only few light clouds in the sky. The temperature lies somewhere between 3 and 7 degrees below zero. Today the rally runs quite far north from Karlstad, and the most distant points of it were about 150 km from the host town. Saying more, the bright colored rally cars make today a double visit to another country – Norway. Probably that is the reason of such high positions of Norwegian drivers almost in all categories? These lands can be called almost a "mountain area" – there is a lot of hills, lakes and rivers on the way. So the differences in temperatures, wind and the route conditions are easily noticeable. But it is still good winter everywhere and the snow is dry and lightweight. Is it good for the crews? Let's talk about his little later.

The main fight that was expected in PWRC was definitely the duel between the runner-up of 2010 Swede Patrik Flodin (who is also "a little bit Russian" as he is driving a Moscow-built URT'2010 Subaru for Subaru Team Russia) and highly motivated as well as pretty fast Norwegian (again – Norwegian!) Anders Grondal. But the beginning of a rally turned to a big disappointment for all those who expected this duel, as Flodin managed to lose about a minute  on the snow bank just at the first morning stage. On the same one where another Swede PG Andersson spent some time few minutes before Patrik. Could that place be now named "the parking for Swedish favorites"? Of course, Grondal didn't refuse from such a present and won the stage, while Flodin was only fifth in PWRC. The second result went to returning Chech Martin Semerad and the third... Yes! From the very first world "forest" stage ever Dmitry Tagirov set the third best time! And we remember – it was namely the stage, that frightened Dmitry most of all during the recce. Between the two teammates of Subaru Team Russia – Tagirov and Flodin (quite unexpected sequence, isn't it?) one can find the Ukrainian Yury Protassov. These five crews were the only ones who managed to complete the stage within one minute difference, as the other Ukrainian, Valery Gorban' lost about 1 minute and 30 seconds to the winner of the stage.

     On the next stage, that was more flat out and fast (and had a picturesque spectators area near the finish) Flodin tried his best to show "who is the boss" on Swedish roads, but Grondal slipped ahead again though for tiny 0,4 seconds only. So the duel between that two turned to a demonstration that a Scandinavian couple could be faster than anybody else for 30 seconds from 20 km long stage if avoids mistakes. So the other duel was even more realistic, as now Semerad was faster than Tagirov for 0,6 seconds only! Both reported that they liked this stage more than the previous one and were going faster and faster. The entire picture was also pretty nice: the five crews completed the stage within 11 seconds difference only.

. The third morning stage was that one visiting Norway. As we remember it was much more loose and bumpy than all the others. Flodin could do nothing with playing his home game that time Grondal, made another mistake overshooting the junction and reversing and finally lost 5 more seconds to Norwegian. "If we calculate we'll see that I'm losing to Anders as much time, as I lost due to my own mistakes" – the Swede noticed before the regroup.

          Dmitry Tagirov was again successful on that stage, setting another 3rd time 12 seconds ahead of Semerad. The current setting of the Russian crew's Subaru fit the difficult Norwegian stage almost perfectly.

Yes, it is still a long way to go and it's too early to make any prognoses, but at least we can imagine how the situation can develop. It's clear that the most interesting events could happen within the current top 7. For all the others the main problem is snow – they know this surface not too much with a rare occasion of doing winter rallies. 7 minutes that "the leader" of this group, the Peruvian champion Nicholas Fuchs is losing to Grondal after just three forest stages – are really too much to speak about any equal fight, the only hope is problems for those who knows the snow roads better.

Two Scandinavians are ahead – one trying to defend his lead, the other desperately trying to catch the rival. The stakes are high and they are not the championship stakes only, but also the principal question of competition on the surface both know perfectly. So the level of risk is also high for both in that duel and the mistakes are possible.

          The next "flashpoint" is the fight of Tagirov and Semerad. Nobody can imagine at this moment, how both are possible to perform here. But if that competition would lead to even a slight mistake – there would be an immediate reaction from Protassov, who is only 23 seconds behind. And if the mistake would be not "slight" – don't forget about Gorban', who is 1 minute and 46 seconds further.

The second section differs from the morning one only for the lack of necessity to visit the town of Torsby for the regroup. And the crews are already on that section.

Dmitry TAGIROV: It was unexpectedly easier for me on SS3 Likenas as the beginning of the stage looks a little bit like Karelian stages that I know. But the morning was really difficult due to the snow that was falling from the trees and limiting the visibility! I had almost to stop in few places where the wind made this snowfall too dense. Also I had to decrease the speed once when we saw the spectators pushing the car from the snow bank. But in all the tricky places I was even too accurate, I feel now. You never need to try a full speed from the very beginning, when You have such three long days ahead! So I'll "try" that rally "with a small spoon" for the beginning!

Anna ZAVERSHINSKAYA: The rhythm is changing too often here! Sometimes you have to be very fast in reading, sometimes – quite slow, and that is the difficulty. But step by step we seem to find our way through these roads and I hope that if we leave all the difficulties of the first day behind successfully – tomorrow it would be a little bit easier!