MOTORSPORT: High time for rallying

It's been labelled "Formula One in the forest" and the "Gravel Grand Prix".

Volkswagen motorsport director Jost Capito more aptly calls it the "Air race on four wheels".

Rally Finland, which for a long time was known as the Rally of 1000 Lakes, is round eight of the World Rally Championship, with round 10 in Australia – at Coffs Harbour – in just seven weeks from now.

Among the 13 events on the WRC calendar, only Finland compares with Rally Monte Carlo for prestige and only Rally Great Britain has been held as often – 41 times – as a world championship round.

What sets Finland apart as the spiritual home of rallying is the many high-flying jumps – often over blind crests – on ultra-fast, flowing gravel roads.

Two years ago, on the way to his first world title with Volkswagen, French rallying superstar Sebastien Ogier's Polo R took off 77 times in the 33.01km of the Ouninpohja stage.

In clocking a record time for that stage – 15 minutes 8.9 seconds, at an average speed of 130.75kmh – it was calculated that the VW spent 30.4 seconds in the air.

A decade earlier Estonian driver Marko Martin recorded the longest jump in WRC history on that stage, travelling 57 metres in the air in a Ford Focus RS after taking off at 171kmh.

"There is nowhere else in the rally world that the drivers experience as many crests and thereby as many long jumps," VW's Capito says.

"And there is nowhere else with gravel tracks at such high speeds in the forest that are as narrow as in Finland."

To rally drivers this event is what Germany's Nurburgring Nordschleife is to circuit racers – the ultimate.

It is based in university town Jyvaskyla in the Finnish lake district. Hyundai's top driver, Belgian Thierry Neuville, had a 160kmh crash at the shakedown, felling a tree as the i20 went off the road backwards.

"When you go straight to the trees at this speed it's not so nice," Neuville said, thankful that he and co-driver Nicolas Gilsoul were not injured and that the car could be repaired for last night's short opening stage, on which they were eighth as Ogier took the honours ahead of Citroen's Kris Meeke.

While the drivers will reach almost 200kmh in places on Ouninpohja, reinstated to the event after a year's absence, they weren't allowed to exceed 70kmh on it during reconnaissance.

This time the revered stage is even longer at 34.39km, which will mean more air time.

The field will tackle it twice tonight (Friday), Australian time – the longest day of the rally, with shortened legs on the weekend – including just a single stage, to be run twice, on Sunday.

"You need to know how the car reacts when jumping over the crests so that you don't have any unpleasant surprises," two-time world champion Ogier says.

"Often you can't see where the track leads, which is why correct pace notes are extremely important."

Ogier says Ouninpohja is "a real highlight" of the WRC season and that he wants to be "right at the front again" on that stage this time.

"That won't be easy, however, since the Finns are usually very strong at their home event," Ogier says.

"I'm expecting my teammate, [Finn] Jari-Matti Latvala, in particular, to prove a challenge again this year. He is the man to beat."

Latvala won on his home ground last year, by just 3.6 seconds from Ogier, and is the only two-time victor in this weekend's field.

He says one of the secrets to success in Finland is respecting every jump, adding that "my mental coach, Christoph Treir, is particularly important to me [at this round]".

Another victory by Latvala would square the ledger between Finland and France for the most WRC events won by their drivers at 174 each.

A win by Ogier would draw him level with Finnish two-time world champion Marcus Gronholm on 30 victories, but still way behind the 78 of France's nine-time world rally champion turned circuit racer, Sebastien Loeb.

Pedder and co-driver Dale Moscatt have taken advice for the daunting task from the event's modern master, Jari-Matti Latvala, and young Australian stars Brendan Reeves and Molly Taylor, who have competed in it previously.

Pedder said Latvala's key point had been to position his car on the road in preparation for the next jump or corner ahead but that it would be "a massive challenge".

"We think in the ARC we have fast roads and big jumps, but I reckon I'll do as many jumps on one stage in Finland as I'd do in two or three seasons in the ARC," he said.

"In the first three [WRC] events we have carried two sets of spares at all times, so we probably had an extra 30-40kg in the car, but this weekend I'm going for a different approach – maximum attack!

"If we can be setting any sort of time within the top eight of WRC2 then that would be incredible."

Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya leads Honda-powered American Graham Rahal by 42 points – with 54 points the maximum to be scored at any round.

Australia's Will Power, the reigning series champion and one of Montoya's three Penske-Chevrolet teammates, is fifth this season, 55 points off the lead. New Zealander Scott Dixon is third with Chip Ganassi Racing and Brazilian Helio Castroneves fourth for Penske.

While Montoya is a hot favourite for the title, the driver leading with three races to go has failed to win the championship in four of the past six seasons.

Mid-Ohio is the first road course IndyCar has visited in more than two months and is a circuit at which the Ganassi team traditionally dominates – it has won there the past six times, with five of those wins by Dixon, and 10 times in all.

Power has had five top-10 finishes at Mid-Ohio, while fellow Australian Ryan Briscoe is the one driver to have broken the recent Ganassi dominance.

That was in 2008, when Briscoe was racing for Team Penske. Now he's a fill-in at Schmidt Peterson Motorsport but has shown pace without great results and will be striving to become the 10th different winner in the series this season.

Scotsman Derrick Walker, who partnered Australian businessman Craig Gore a decade ago in Team Australia, with which Power first won in America, is quitting as IndyCar's competition director at the end of the season.

Walker has been in a hot seat overseeing the introduction of aero kits this year to the Dallara cars that have proved problematic, especially in the lead-up to the major event at Indianapolis in May.

Meanwhile, Italian Alex Zanardi – the former open-wheeler star in America and in Formula 1 who has prosthetic legs after a horror crash almost a decade ago – says that racing in the Indianapolis 500 remains one of his ambitions.

Zanardi has talked informally about that goal with Jimmy Vasser, the American ex-racer in partnership with expatriate Australian Kevin Kalkhoven in IndyCar team KV Racing Technology.

However, a more likely team for Zanardi would be Chip Ganassi Racing, with which he had great success in CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams) in the late 1990s, during its split from IndyCar.

BMW motorsport chief Jens Marquardt has said that moving on from those changeovers – not scheduled until the 2018-19 season – "would be a condition for our potential direct involvement".

"If you look at public discussions of electric mobility the issue of reach is very important," Marquardt said.

Renault and Citroen, through its DS sub-brand, are the only major car makers involved so far in Formula E.

Marquardt said that electric vehicles are "the future for BMW" and that it could be interested in showcasing its technology at Le Mans – through the Garage 56 entry that can be granted in special cases.

He could not envisage BMW taking on Porsche, Audi, Toyota and Nissan in the hybrid battle at the great 24-hour race in France.

"What we do in racing has to reflect what we do in production," Marquardt told DailySportsCar.com.

"That's why we turned to production-like racing, more or less, with either production-based cars like the Z4GT3 or the M235i Racing, or 'lookalikes' like the M4 in DTM [the German touring car series]."

The Federation Internationale de l'Automobile wants seven manufacturers each represented by three cars and driven by fully-professional drivers at its inaugural GT World Cup in Macau in November.

GT racing's primary promoter, Stephane Ratel, has said that all but one of the major manufacturers involved in GT3 racing have shown interest.

Ratel said Ferrari had indicated it would not take part in Macau, but he was hopeful of Ferrari teams deciding independently to go.

There also are doubts about Lamborghini's involvement because of a clash with the world finals of its American, European and Asian Super Trofeo one-make series on the same weekend.