Those suffering little *bleeps*

FIVE minute penalties over 0.5mm??? WHaaaaaaaaat? B*stard$! ARGH!

Sorry but I felt the need... lol... All Fords were given a 5 minute penalty in the Portugese Rally at the weekend because both rear windows were 3mm thick instead of 3.5mm thick. This means Citroen are within spitting distance in the Constructors Championship (which we won last year) and *bleep* *bleep* sack of merde and general jammy b*gger Sebastian Loeb is now top of the drivers championship by one naffing point (how it ended last year)

ARGH

Come on Ayesha... Just face it M-Sport F...'d up on this one... They did not respect the regulations... they got bitten back.

If the homologation sheet specifies 3.5 then it has to be 3.5, not 3.0. In fact they can consider themselves lucky in that they got only 5 minutes penalty. Bear in mind that FIA are usually much more heavy-handed in penalties given due to non-respect of regulations. Remember Peugeot got all of its works 307's excluded from the final results of a rally for not using homologated water pumps (only the material was different). They were also very lucky that Marcus was not disqualified altogether on day 2 when his car was weighed 5 kilos below minimum weight.

As for Loeb leading the driver's championship, he is not going to need the extra points from a single rally. As much as I would love for Gronholm to win it, one just has to admit that Loeb is a notch ahead on every surface except maybe for snow and ice which unfortunately is found at only 2/16 rounds of the championship. Don't get me wrong, I don't like Loeb much as a person but it's undeniable that he is just the best rally driver around at the moment, if not ever. You say one point was the gap at the end of last year's championship, but remember that Loeb missed 4 rounds of it! There is pretty much no chance Gronholm is world champion this year I'm afraid. As for the constructors championship it all depends on Sordo and his lack of experience (and progress) on gravel. If he does not get any better then Ford still stand a good chance as Hirvonen regularly scores good points.

As for M sport, how hard can it be to stick to regulations and make sure that the parts you fit to your car match the homologation sheet? Most of you have visited their workshop and headquarters in Cumbria... You've seen how clean and spotless it all was, you were able to get a feel for the professionalism that goes on in there... So don't tell me they can't hire an engineer that is able to fit a correct side window.

Oh I know what you're saying Nick and I agree totally with you... I'm just annoyed!

Lord... I wont ever rant on here again ... yikes...

I want this thread deleted.

Well it's just a debate... Feel free to rant on

It took me all of 20 minutes to put together those 3 paragraphs... I'd hate for the thread to be deleted now...