From www.wrc.com
Getting to Istanbul for Rally of Turkey, round four of the FIA World Rally Championship, was the easy part. Getting home amid the chaos brought about by the pan-European flight restrictions due to the volcanic ash cloud in Iceland proved to be anything but for the bulk of the WRC contingent.
To make matters worse, the world championship’s top teams were under pressure to make it back to base as quickly as possible in order to begin the painstaking task of preparing their cars in time to fly them to New Zealand, where the series resumes from May 6 to 9.
Although the works Citroen squad made it back to France by Tuesday, the factory Ford team, based in northwest England, was not expecting its transporters to return until Friday lunchtime.
As a result, its mechanics were braced for working over the weekend to ensure their cars will be ready to be air freighted to Auckland in the middle of next week.
And working over the weekend will be the last thing those mechanics will want to do after enduring a 70-hour coach journey that took them from Turkey to the UK via Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and France.
Ford duo Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen summoned some friends to meet them in Bulgaria and drive them back to their native Finland.
Ford technical director Christian Loriaux caught a flight from Istanbul to Nice but then had to resort to driving to Calais and then onward to Ford’s base by road. Pirelli’s team of tire technicians completed their journey from Turkey to Italy by bus.
And now all these people must travel by plane for 26 hours to reach New Zealand!
Getting to Istanbul for Rally of Turkey, round four of the FIA World Rally Championship, was the easy part. Getting home amid the chaos brought about by the pan-European flight restrictions due to the volcanic ash cloud in Iceland proved to be anything but for the bulk of the WRC contingent.
To make matters worse, the world championship’s top teams were under pressure to make it back to base as quickly as possible in order to begin the painstaking task of preparing their cars in time to fly them to New Zealand, where the series resumes from May 6 to 9.
Although the works Citroen squad made it back to France by Tuesday, the factory Ford team, based in northwest England, was not expecting its transporters to return until Friday lunchtime.
As a result, its mechanics were braced for working over the weekend to ensure their cars will be ready to be air freighted to Auckland in the middle of next week.
And working over the weekend will be the last thing those mechanics will want to do after enduring a 70-hour coach journey that took them from Turkey to the UK via Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and France.
Ford duo Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen summoned some friends to meet them in Bulgaria and drive them back to their native Finland.
Ford technical director Christian Loriaux caught a flight from Istanbul to Nice but then had to resort to driving to Calais and then onward to Ford’s base by road. Pirelli’s team of tire technicians completed their journey from Turkey to Italy by bus.
And now all these people must travel by plane for 26 hours to reach New Zealand!