The WRC half-term report

The holidays are here. Sebastien Loeb's gone jet-skiing, Matthew Wilson's off on a bike ride, Petter Solberg's jumping out of aeroplanes and Mikko Hirvonen's enjoying the sunshine at home.

Six rallies into this year's World Rally Championship and we've learned plenty. It's been an amazing ride so far, with some incredibly tight fights - including the closest finish to a WRC round, when Sebastien Ogier edged Jari-Matti Latvala by just 0.2 seconds in Jordan. Beyond that, there's been the usual mix of sport and politics.

But this time the politics hasn't all been behind the scenes and it hasn't all been about the FIA. Citroen has hit the headlines hard in the first half of the year, not only for winning five from six rallies - but also for the internal battle for the supremacy between Sebastiens old and new; Loeb and Ogier. From pre-season to summer holidays, there hasn't been a dull moment.

The new dawn

After weeks of anticipation, the result wasn't exactly the one we had predicted.

It's snowing and super-cold at 2011's first shakedown in Sweden, but this is the centre of our world right now. For months engineers from Ford and Citroen have been beavering away on their respective Fiesta RS and DS3 World Rally Cars and now, finally, they're going head-to-head.

And the driver to set the fastest time in the sport's history-making next generation is... Henning Solberg. Lovely bloke and one who certainly knows how to pedal a rally car, but what happened to the Finns and the Frenchmen?

Three miles in two minutes on the eve of the main event gave us a small insight into what was to come, but when the snow started falling hard the night before Sweden, one thing was for sure; Loeb would not be winning this event - and he didn't. Forced into the role of snow plough, Loeb, Ogier and Citroen suffered a troubled first outing with a puncture-plagued Citroen. Sixth and fourth was not what was expected from the fruits of a hard working winter in Versailles.

Hirvonen led an all-Ford podium in Sweden, but has not triumphed since © LAT

Best not to be too quick to judge.

Maybe it was all the snow that had fallen over the winter in Cumbria. Maybe it was Ford technical director Christian Loriaux's guile and brilliance coming to the fore or maybe the old Hirvonen was back. It didn't really matter. The likeable Finn won his first rally for 12 months on round one - and became the first man to win a WRC round in a Fiesta.

We were up and running.

Citroen and Loeb the same old story - or is it?

Ford and Citroen - although privately more Citroen than Ford - pointed out that Rally Sweden remained a very specific event and that not too much should be read into the podium lock-out for the Fiesta in Scandinavia.

But what about round two in Mexico? Hmm, a better indicator, but then the high altitude nature of the central American roads ensured this was something of a specialist event as well. The biggest Mexican wave was for Loeb, who clinched Citroen's first success with the DS3. Ford wasn't too despondent, though. Having been beaten out of sight in the breathless hills above Leon a year earlier, the British-built car proved to be much closer as Hirvonen and Latvala stood on the steps just below Loeb on Sunday afternoon.

Ford's pace in the thin air was not what people were talking about in Mexico, however.

That talk was centred on the rivalry at Citroen. Boiling point was being reached much earlier than expected.

Ogier led going into the final day, with Loeb 11s down on him in second. Having been given the straightforward instruction to bring the cars home in for an all-French one-two, Ogier dropped his DS3 on the first stage on Sunday morning.

In Portugal, Ogier bounced back with a repeat of his Algarve win of 12 months earlier. He did the same in Jordan, after the closest finish to a WRC round, beating Latvala by just 0.2s after two days of desert racing. Loeb was on sublime form to win in Italy next time out, while Ogier appeared to have Argentina in the bag, only to roll on the final morning, turning a near-certain win into a hugely disconsolate third place.

Loeb let rip to the press in Greece © LAT

The obvious line here is one of Citroen's success on gravel. The not-so-obvious sub-story is the one about the deteriorating relationships at Citroen. Laughed off and made light of by the team itself, the lid was well and truly blown off the top of the pressure cooker last time out in Greece, when Loeb accused his team of favouring Ogier and conspiring against him.

Bang! It had happened. The balmy Saturday night in Loutraki went absolutely barmy as the story spread of Loeb storming out of the team briefing before venting his frustrations to French television.

And, just when things couldn't get much worse, a voice from the past came back to haunt Citroen team principal Olivier Quesnel. His predecessor, the man known as 'Grizzly', a man not to be messed with in or out of a rally car, Guy Frequelin, had been unable to keep his thoughts to himself as he watched the record-breaking team he had helped build turning into a battle ground more akin to the 16th Century scrap between Bourbon and Guise.

Frequelin laid into what he saw as Quesnel's mismanagement of the team and even, in one extraordinary outburst, talked of Quesnel's head exploding after, in his view, it had grown so large. Quesnel maintained a dignified silence and let his mid-season 55-point lead over Ford do his talking.

Truce has been called at Citroen, but how long will it last? Not long.

The problem is that everybody has a good point. Quesnel deserves sympathy for the invidious position he's in; he was regularly castigated for running Dani Sordo as a dead-set number two driver, so he brings in a driver who can fight with Loeb - and who's allowed to fight with Loeb - and that's wrong as well.

Undoubtedly Loeb would prefer to have Sordo back. The Spaniard knew his place and never once had the temerity to look down on Loeb from the top step of the podium. That's all changed now. Ogier's absolutely not going to settle for second and, having promised him joint number one status to keep his protege from going to Ford mid-way through last year, Quesnel has no option but to abide by the agreement.

Watch this space.

Ford has not won since Hirvonen's Swedish success © LAT

What about Ford's Finns?

You would have thought that with all the in-fighting going on at Citroen, the chief beneficiary would have been Ford. It hasn't really panned out like that.

Ford's Fiesta RS WRC has yet to win on gravel - Sweden doesn't count.

And, by the time we reach the next round in Finland, Ford won't have won on gravel in 12 months.

Perhaps of most concern is the fact that Hirvonen hasn't won on gravel since Rally Australia in 2009.

So Ford's a team in trouble then? Actually, not so much.

As you would expect, both Ford and Citroen have suffered mechanical troubles with their new 1.6-litre World Rally Cars, but the Fiesta has been marginally the weaker of the two so far. Equally, Ford is running many more cars than Citroen - at times, 10 Fiestas against three DS3s - so Ford is likely to hit more teething troubles. The transmission on the Fiesta has been a particular weak point, quite literally. Xtrac will produce a stronger casing for the gearbox ahead of Finland and the driveshaft problems which have hit Latvala and Hirvonen are also reckoned to have been sorted.

The Ford is very fast. Latvala has the second highest number of fastest stage times so far this year with 30 - just four behind Loeb. And, let's not forget that, had Latvala been 0.3s faster in Jordan, there would not be any of this brouhaha about Ford not winning. Just 0.3s. That's 300 milliseconds. That really is, and believe - me I've checked this one, the blink of an eye.

It's been a first half of massive frustration for Ford.

There have been a couple of drop-goals, some close work around the try line, but so far no five-pointers and too many knock-ons.

One of Latvala's favourite rallies around is Rally d'Italia. He's hugely fast on an event where precision and a margin for error - to allow for last-minute adjustments to your line to avoid the massive boulders unearthed by the car ahead - are an absolute must. Take maximum attack in Sardinia and the wheels will soon come off your wagon. It speaks volumes about Latvala's maturity that he has already won there.

Latvala was fast in Italy before rolling © LAT

But not this year. Unfortunately, Latvala's co-driver Miikka Anttila made a mistake with the notes and they rolled. That they came back and blitzed the weekend merely rubbed salt in. Ford and Latvala could have and should have won there.

So, are we shaping up for another steady Hirvonen season? No. Absolutely not. He's still second in the championship - and he's only been off the podium twice in six rallies. He's nowhere near as bad as he was last year. He's got the consistency and, on a Sunday, he's got the speed. Look at him in Argentina; yes, he lost to Loeb, but he put in a big, big effort and demonstrated plenty of bravery and commitment. Then he did the same on Sunday in Greece. All this speed on the Sabbath could be bad news on the next round: Finland finishes on Saturday night. Somehow, I suspect, speed, bravery and commitment won't be a problem when he fires up the Fiesta at home.

The return of the privateer

One of the best things about the new technical regulations, we were told, would be the return of the privateer. After years of being unable to compete with the high-tech factory cars, this season's rules governing straightforward transmissions, gizmo-free ECUs and longer-lasting motors would mean a more even field.

They weren't wrong.

The first two drivers to lead in this new era were both privateers as Per-Gunnar Andersson and Mads Ostberg placed their Fiestas at the top of the timesheets. Indeed, it took Hirvonen half of Rally Sweden to get the better of Ostberg - and even then he couldn't shake him off completely as the 23-year-old Norwegian finished just 12s adrift of the factory car. Since then, there hasn't really been a huge threat from a local Ford driver, but it's quite possible that a few of the Finns will be putting some works noses out of joint in Jyvaskyla later this month.

The private driver who had been expected to win in the first half of the year was Petter Solberg. Equipped with the same machinery as Loeb and Ogier, the 2003 champion was back in business. And then he wasn't.

Having made his own declaration of independence at the start of the season, Solberg would have been hoping that the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson's 'All men are created equal' line would have rung true from Citroen's side of Paris.

Solberg has had a frustrating campaign in his Citroen © LAT

But, in all honesty, that's not really the case. Take Mexico, for example, Solberg's car suffered an electrical glitch on a reportedly unprotected part. The same part on the factory cars were well hidden behind plastic shields. Then there were the four punctures Solberg suffered on day one in Portugal. Bad luck? Or bad planning to put Solberg on different rims to the factory cars? Another deflation put paid to his chances in Sardinia, while a power steering failure finished him in Argentina.

Solberg hasn't been entirely blameless, he crashed in Jordan and got caught speeding in Sweden - forcing co-driver Chris Patterson to drive the final stage. But, he has easily deserved more than the single podium his first six rallies in equal machinery have netted. The astonishing thing about the 2011-specification Solberg is his unwillingness to complain about anything. Remember sings-like-a-canary-Petter from the bad-old Subaru days, when everything was everybody's fault? Well, this year has been a revelation. Solberg steadfastly refuses to complain about the car... Apart from at the end of the second Santa Rosa stage on Saturday in Argentina. If you were listening to Rally Radio that afternoon, I'd like to apologise on Solberg's behalf. Live on air, he took swearing to a new level.

Whether or not Solberg has the same kit, only Citroen will ever really know. The one thing we do know is that he doesn't have the same amount of testing as the factory drivers. For example, he arrived in Argentina never having tested Michelin's gravel tyre on asphalt. As the season progresses, Solberg is becoming more and more at home in the DS3 and more and more of a threat to the factory domination.

And then there were three

Mini's arrival in the World Rally Championship came with a launch in Cowley, where the Anglo-German alliance made a solid fist of paying tribute to a glorious history while also offering an insight into a groovy future for the hip motor.

The Countryman is, however, aimed rather more at the hip-replacement rather than hip market. No matter. It's a Mini and it contains a Brit called Meeke, Kris Meeke.

Mini ran well on its debut in Italy © LAT

The team - constituting design and development by Prodrive, engine by BMW and marketing by Mini - took its bow in Sardinia. And the car was the star of the Italian island. Briefly. Seventh quickest on its first stage, courtesy of the Northern Irishman, the car rocketed up the leaderboard with third fastest on the first Monte Grighini stage. Fourth overall going in SS3, that was as far as Meeke would get after a throttle problem sent him off the road.

Having given a two-fingered salute to the doubters, Mini returned to base camp. Now comes a summit worth reaching as Meeke and Sordo set about the fastest rally of them all in Finland. If either of them can get near a top-three stage time over the jumps in Jyvaskyla, that really will be a song worth singing.

And there will be four

This year's Rally d'Italia will be remembered for what happened the night before the event, rather than for Mini's debut or Loeb's 64th WRC win. It will be remembered for Volkswagen's arrival in the WRC. Predictably, the glitzy launch was rife with intention, ability and promise. And, even as a mock-up, the Polo R WRC looked every inch a World Championship winner.

VW committed to a five-year WRC programme, to spending the next 18 months developing the car and team before starting three years of running in the series in 2013. The World Championship appeared to be riding on the crest of a wave, but the tough talking was never far away...

The politics show

As ever, there's been plenty of debate behind closed doors about every aspect of the sport's rules and regulations. After prolonged discussion, it appears we'll have new rules on the start order, with shakedown running as qualifying from next season. Then there was the whole Abu Dhabi debacle. The Emirate was in with a WRC round next year - and it would have been one of the best-financed and most incredible events (from a show if not from a stage perspective) in the sport's history - then it was out. And it remains out.

Volkswagen launched its Polo R WRC on the eve of the Italian round in May

Britain, however, was never out on paper (but there always remained the possibility that the unthinkable might actually happen), but now it's in. Where we'll be next year, Cardiff or Harrogate, we still don't know. But at least we'll be somewhere, somewhere in September, however, rather than November.

The first half of the year hasn't been the best for North One Sport, the WRC's promoter. Despite innovations such as the powerstage and the, er, powerstage and, er... there hasn't been a massive amount coming from NOS.

The manufacturers kept a lid on their frustrations until recently, when Ford and Citroen came out and slammed what they see as a distinct lack of progress in areas such as live internet television coverage. What was, we were assured, imminent two years ago seems as far away as ever.

And then there's the television coverage in the UK, which, on some events, is reportedly being measured in just four figures on ESPN.

Yet still, go to Argentina, and a million people will turn out to watch this staggeringly stunning sport of ours. Harnessing that fever and funnelling it down a cable to people's living rooms appears to be another matter.

What's to come

More close rallies. Just two of the four events so far this year have been decided by more than 30s. Expect more of the same on the next five rallies. And, we should, in all honesty expect Citroen to take another manufacturers' title with three of the next five rallies running on asphalt.

But which way will the drivers' title go? My money's on Loeb. There are still no real chinks in his armour, it's just that others are arming themselves better than ever before. The season-long competition's coming, but this will still be the year of the original Sebastien.

More pertinent is the question of whether he will still be talking to Sebastien the second and the rest of the Citroen team come Cardiff in November.