Fantasy WRC: Australia

"Dusty Ventures" (dustyventures)
09/09/2013 at 14:00 • Filed to: fantasywrc, rally

G'day! Time for another foray into the Outback as the WRC is headed to Australia after a one year hiatus. This dusty, high-flying rally has long been a fan favorite and the unique conditions can challenge the very best, including Mr Loeb, who only has one win and three podiums in five starts here. Fellow Citroen driver Hirvonen has the best record down under, having won the last three rounds in 2006, 2009, and 2011. He'll be looking to get that fourpeat this weekend. Ogier, the "favorite" at every event these days, has never had a good finish in Australia, finishing fifth and 11th in his two visits, but he's been nearly unstoppable this season, and a win will clinch the 2013 championship. His teammate Latvala has never won in Oz, but he's been progressively better every outing, finishing sixth, fourth, and second, and scoring the most stage wins in 2011.

There are a few other wild cards in the deck as well. Neuville, Ostberg, Mikkelsen, and Meeke have never raced in Australia and Novikov retired in his only visit here back in 2011. The only way to even remotely guess how these five will fare is by looking at their performance so far this year.

Here are the rules and scoring: Pick four drivers for the rally and one for the power stage (the final stage of the rally). None of your four drivers can be part of the same team (so you can’t have both Hirvonen and Sordo, or both Ogier and Latvala). Your power stage driver can be amongst your four main drivers or it can be someone else (team rules do not apply for the power stage driver). List the four drivers in the order you expect them to finish. At the end of the rally you get the cumulative total points from each of your four drivers (an additional 2 points if you correctly guessed their finishing order), plus 2x however many points your power stage driver scored (if any).

Here's the WRC Australia entry list, and stats are back!

Citroen Total Abu Dhabi WRT
•Mikko Hirvonen
Best Finish, Last 10 Races: 2 (x2)
Podiums, Last 10 Races: 4
Average Pts, Last 10 Races: 10.2
DNFs, Last 10 Races: 1
Points-Scoring Finishes, Last 10 Races: 8
Australia Starts: 5
Best Finish, Australia: 1 (x3)
Australia Podiums: 3
Average Pts, Austraila: 17.8
Points-Scoring Finishes, Australia: 5
•Kris Meeke
Best Finish, Last 9 Races: 4
Podiums, Last 9 Races: 0
Average Pts, Last 9 Races: 2.7
DNFs, Last 10 Races: 6
Points-Scoring Finishes, Last 9 Races: 3
Australia Starts: 0

Qatar M-Sport WRT
•Mads Ostberg
Best Finish, Last 10 Races: 3 (x2)
Podiums, Last 10 Races: 2
Average Pts, Last 10 Races: 7.4
DNFs, Last 10 Races: 0
Points-Scoring Finishes, Last 10 Races: 9
Australia Starts: 0
•Evgeny Novikov
Best Finish, Last 10 Races: 4 (x2)
Podiums, Last 10 Races: 0
Average Pts, Last 10 Races: 3.9
DNFs, Last 10 Races: 2
Points-Scoring Finishes, Last 10 Races: 8
Australia Starts: 1
Best Finish, Australia: N/A
Australia Podiums: 0
Average Pts, Austraila: 0
Points-Scoring Finishes, Australia: 0

Volkswagen Motorsport
•Jari-Matti Latvala
Best Finish, Last 10 Races: 1
Podiums, Last 10 Races: 5
Average Pts, Last 10 Races: 10.6
DNFs, Last 10 Races: 1
Points-Scoring Finishes, Last 10 Races: 7
Australia Starts: 3
Best Finish, Australia: 2
Australia Podiums: 1**
**Average Pts, Austraila: 12.7
Points-Scoring Finishes, Australia: 3
•Sebastien Ogier
Best Finish, Last 10 Races: 1 (x5)
Podiums, Last 10 Races: 7
Average Pts, Last 10 Races: 16.2
DNFs, Last 10 Races: 0
Points-Scoring Finishes, Last 10 Races: 8
Australia Starts: 2
Best Finish, Australia: 5
Australia Podiums: 0
Average Pts, Austraila: 5.0
Points-Scoring Finishes, Australia: 1

Volkswagen Motorsport 2
•Andreas Mikkelsen
Best Finish, Last 10 Races: 4
Podiums, Last 10 Races: 0
Average Pts, Last 10 Races: 2.9
DNFs, Last 10 Races: 2
Points-Scoring Finishes, Last 10 Races: 5
Australia Starts: 0

Abu Dhabi Citroen Total WRT
•Khalid Al-Qassimi
Best Finish, Last 10 Races: 5
Podiums, Last 10 Races: 0
Average Pts, Last 10 Races: 1.3
DNFs, Last 10 Races: 2
Points-Scoring Finishes, Last 10 Races: 3
Australia Starts: 2
Best Finish, Australia: 5
Australia Podiums: 0
Average Pts, Austraila: 5
Points-Scoring Finishes, Australia: 1

Qatar WRT
•Thierry Neuville
Best Finish, Last 10 Races: 2 (x3)
Podiums, Last 10 Races: 5
Average Pts, Last 10 Races: 10.4
DNFs, Last 10 Races: 1
Points-Scoring Finishes, Last 10 Races: 7
Australia Starts: 0

Notable WRC2 Drivers:
•Yazeed Al Rajhi
Best Finish, Last 10 Races: 8
Podiums, Last 10 Races: 0
Average Pts, Last 10 Races: 0.5
DNFs, Last 10 Races: 2
Points-Scoring Finishes, Last 10 Races: 2
Australia Starts: 0
•Hayden Paddon
Best Finish, Last 9 Races: 8
Podiums, Last 10 Races: 0
Average Pts, Last 10 Races: 0.4
DNFs, Last 10 Races: 2
Points-Scoring Finishes, Last 10 Races: 1
Australia Starts: 2
Best Finish, Australia: 6
Australia Podiums: 0
Average Pts, Austraila: 5.0
Points-Scoring Finishes, Australia: 2

DISCUSSION (17)

Eric Siedlecki > Dusty Ventures
09/09/2013 at 14:08

1. Seb Ogier (I'd be stupid not to)
2. Mads Ostberg (he'll lose that bad luck eventually, right?)
3. Mikko Hirvonen (why not)

Power Stage: J-M Latvala (because he's a favorite of mine)

Raphael Orlove > Eric Siedlecki
09/09/2013 at 14:29

you need a fourth pick!

Raphael Orlove > Dusty Ventures
09/09/2013 at 14:35

1) Hirvonen - I just feel bad for the dude at this point. Want him to start doing well

2) Neuville - feeling a lot of momentum from this guy

3) Latvala - I expect he'll hit like, eight hundred rocks in the opening turn of the first stage, blowing out all four tires, every suspension component, and even his spares inside the car. He'll then rush back up the leaderboard to a podium, as is the JM way.

4) Ostberg - he'll make it up only because I'm betting that Ogier will take a jump too far, land too hard on one wheel, and roll out of the contention for the win.

Power: Ogier, with his rolled car.

WorldRallyBlog > Dusty Ventures
09/09/2013 at 14:40

I am SO DAMN HAPPY RIGHT NOW. I accidentally lost one CSS file by remotely drag-n-dropping another file of same name on one server and I was looking into the abyss for 2 full hours. It was horrible, horrible situation. I was looking into days of rebuilding. There was no backup on server. But then, while browsing VPS aimlessly I stumbled onto a user_backups folder. And there, my domain, in tar.gz format, time stamp: 5 AM this morning. Why am I not seeing these backups on user level? Why did I almost became instant alcoholic just moments ago? I dare not ask. My file was saved. I was saved. I lived.

Sorry, I had to share it. Still have the shakes. It's a tough job!

Rally Australia:

1. Mikko Hirvonen

2. Sebastien Ogier

3. Thierry Neuville

4. Hayden Paddon

Power stage:

Sebastien Ogier

sliding-sideways > Dusty Ventures
09/09/2013 at 14:46

1. Hirvonen (Power)

2. Ogier

3. Ostberg

4. Neuville

Dusty Ventures > Dusty Ventures
09/09/2013 at 14:46

1) Ogier (Orlove made fantasy picks this week so Ogier is sure to win)
2) Hirvonen
3) Neuville
4) Ostberg, no Paddon, no Ostberg, no Paddon, no Ostdon, no Padberg... sigh I'll take Ostberg

Power: Ogier

nobody > Dusty Ventures
09/09/2013 at 14:50

Ogier

Hirvonen

Ostberg

Paddon

JML for power

Hoccy > Dusty Ventures
09/09/2013 at 14:56

1. Jari Matti Latvala
2. Mads Østberg
3. Mikko Hirvonen
4. Thierry Neuville

Power Stage: Mads Østberg

Eric Siedlecki > Raphael Orlove
09/09/2013 at 15:11

Reading comprehension fail.

...updating...

Eric Siedlecki > Eric Siedlecki
09/09/2013 at 15:12

My 4th place finisher will be Thierry Neuville.

Hermann > Dusty Ventures
09/09/2013 at 15:16

Holy crap! I was about to completely missed this one, I didn't even check the review of Germany. (which I should've made, I think, sorry). I was just about to dive into a pile of work and leave oppo for a few days.

Anyway:
1) Ogier
2) Hirvonen (Power)
3) Ostberg
4) Neuville

Raphael Orlove > Dusty Ventures
09/09/2013 at 15:48

confound you, sir

Dusty Ventures > Raphael Orlove
09/09/2013 at 16:50

I just don't think it's coincidence that the two weeks you forgot to make picks are the two weeks Ogier had a bad time

Dusty Ventures > Hermann
09/09/2013 at 16:52

Don't sweat missing the Germany review. It makes more sense for me to do the reviews since I have the spreadsheets to calculate points

Hermann > Dusty Ventures
09/09/2013 at 23:37

You have a whaa? You cheater. Here was I thinking you had a calculator and a desk full of post its!

McNewbie1 > Dusty Ventures
09/10/2013 at 11:41

Ogier (power)
Ostberg
Hirvonen
Neuville

Hermann > Dusty Ventures
09/13/2013 at 13:05

Man. I have the feeling you're going to sweep this one.