That season was WRC's absolute 2nd peak after Group B. It's still so hard to believe how all this came crashing down to just 2.5 manufacturers in 2006 and just 2 drivers battling it out.
With the points system back then and everyone squabbling, one must think that it was Markko Märtin's best chance in the new Ford. He would have been hard in that title fight without the 4 engine failures and one DSQ due to carrying a rock in the car. In total 6 retirements with a lot of speed during that year. Fun fact: had he won the title, it would have made it 15 titles won by Sebastien-named Frenchmen BETWEEN two Estonians - Märtin and Tänak.
Hmmmmmmmmmmm... Let's see who messed up Loeb messed up in Corsica but was pretty unlucky with rain, which favored Solberg Burns messed up in Spain, but was even more unlucky with his illness. Probably should have won Gronholm messed up everywhere in the 2nd half Sainz messed up in Wales Ford messed over Markko and Michael Rovanpera could have won three or four rallies but wrecked on all of them Solberg messed up in tarmac but the rain saved him. Now let' see who didn't mess up Makinen but he was slow McRae but his driving style didn't suit the UNDERsteery Citroen Panizzi but he was like only chosen for three rallies Duval but he couldn't beat Beef and Markko So basically, if you were in 2003, you either messed up or was slow
testament to how good 2003 was. The top drivers were fast and kept pushing each other into messing up. You had to be fast and took risk to keep up with others basically.
@@jokkethegamer94 He was off the pace in the tarmac rounds but that was partly due to Peugeot ceasing development of the 206 WRC and putting more effort into its replacement the 307
Loeb is overrated 😴. He only won so many titles because a couple of years after this he was up against hardly any former champions not to mention subaru becoming uncompetitive. And between 09 and 2012... it was only ford and Citroën competing. I really think changing the points system in 2003 was a mistake.. 79 to 02 was always much closer when only top 6 drivers were awarded points. When they did top 8 and eventually top 10... it lost it's appeal a little bit and downsizing to fiestas and ds3's in 2011 was the end for me. I don't like the current hyundai, Toyota and puma.. they are all boring looking cars that look nothing like their road-going siblings like the wrc of yesteryear did
@@GFY127 I call bullshit. He had serious competition at the beginning of his WRC career, which he was successfully fighting, and that was even before his prime, when nobody could catch up to him or Gronholm, also 2x champion. Maybe you think you are better competition than the rest of the grid?
I also don't care that the British drivers were driving French cars Unfortunately there were no competive British rally cars in the WRC I think both British drivers should have stayed with Subaru and not gone with the bloody froggy cars
British drivers don't seem to have much luck in the WRC It seems that the French drivers had better luck FIA is French so I think a lot of cheating was going on
@@eggselent9814 fia stands for Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile. It’s origins are French. However, I don’t agree that there was cheating going on even if it seemed a bit suspect how loeb and then ogier after him very rarely ended up with car problems that resulted in dnfs vs their competitors
@@tombardsley3081 That is in one part due to the cars they were driving. The Citroën’s and VWs were the most reliable cars in the field by quite a margin. On the other hand, both Loeb and Ogier were the teams No.1 drivers and the teams obviously looked after their drivers cars the best
@@eggselent9814 yeah it was just frustrating to watch as a neutral though as championships after 2003 weren't as exciting as a result. Yes 2007, 2009 and 2011 went to the wire but that was only 2 drivers whereas here we had 4 drivers from 3 teams that could have won it prior to the final event
@@tombardsley3081 I mean of course, but it’s better than having no titles go down to the wire like in the last 10 years of F1, so i‘ll take it. Plus i think 2017-2019 were some great years
![WRC 2003 (full season review) [2003]](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
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