The alternative WRC awards of 2014

Final column of the year. And time to have a look back at some of the stuff that I didn't write about before. Some of the slightly more leftfield content which wasn't quite right for the magazine or the website. Until now.

It's been another brilliant and breath-taking season from behind this laptop. Is the World Rally Championship as good as ever? Of course it is. Does a bear - or Henning Solberg (read on) - poo in the woods?

To end the year, I'm handing out my own set of awards to the world of rallying. Here goes:

Biggest disappointment of 2014

Thought long and hard about this one. There was a case for talking about the first half of Mikko Hirvonen's year. It was hardly a classic and a real contender for this category.

Hirvonen just escapes 'winning' the first of our man's awards © LAT

But then I had to go for something far more disappointing... the shocking Suzuki Swift Hertz supplied me with in Rally Australia. Gutless and, to make matters even worse, automatic. Shocking. Still, I gave the Wedding Bells stage record a good go.

In case you're wondering, I didn't beat it. I would have done, had I not stopped halfway through to look at some massive trees.

Best press office of the season

Being entirely neutral and not in the slightest nationalistic, I'm going for Rally GB. Just kidding. There's not actually one stand-out winner here, so the prize (of which there isn't one) will go to two events.

Rally Australia was comfortably the most hospitable for the second season in succession. Chris Nixon and his team provided live television coverage of all stages, kept the pigeon holes constantly filled with stage times and, most importantly, provided enormous blueberry muffins for breakfast, sandwiches (which were a bit too healthy and contained far too many bean sprouts for my liking, being picky) for lunch and pasta and red wine for supper. Amazing! And very well received.

The other part of the award goes to Rally of Spain; far and away the most comfortable and adjustable chairs of the year.

Amusing moment of the year

Plenty of material again this year, but by far the best has to be the description of Henning Solberg's mid-forest toileting habits on the final day of Rally GB. Lining up at the start of the stage, the Norwegian felt the urge and wisely elected to find a tree rather than start in that state.

Don't follow Henning Solberg into the woods, that's our advice © McKlein

This is, of course, perfectly normal. Apart from the fact that Henning was going for a, er, slightly longer job... Then came back and offered a full and frank description.

Unfortunately for Jari-Matti Latvala, he'd been running through the woods (again, perfectly normal for the crew to go for a five-minute run to warm-up pre-stage) and the Finn found himself in the uncomfortable position of being able to corroborate Henning's tale.

Best spectating of the year

Were this not a family website, the combination of this category and the previous winner might work well in an Inbetweeners-kind of a way. Instead, we'll go with a more conventional approach to the best watching of the season.

Argentina. Condor in the fog? Nope. Santa Catalina charge from Ogier? Close, but wrong again.

The junction of Ramon Carcano and Avenida Colon on the west side of Cordoba, on a late-Sunday charge to the airport offered some of the most heroic and staggering efforts behind the wheel. Pressing on a bit through the traffic, I felt I was showing the South Americans a thing or two about cut and thrust, slicing my Chevy Classic from lane-to-lane as I chased the plane in the pouring rain.

Forget it. I was completely outclassed by a man, his wife, and their son. On a moped. The bloke was mental. Totally nuts. Fortunately, crash helmets were being put to good use... as shopping bags for the groceries. And anyway, the good lady couldn't have worn a lid. She was on the phone.

The most insane moment was saved for said intersection, where a lorry pulled out on them. The bike locked up, but somehow stayed upright. Pappa went mental. Fuming at the driver, he stood up on the pegs and tried to slap the front of the bonnet.

Spectacular Rally Argentina stages were outshone by crazy locals © LAT

Unfortunately, the truck in question had no bonnet. He'd have seen that, if it hadn't been dark. In fairness, the truck driver would have seen the moped if the incident had a) happened in daylight or b) either vehicle had any lights at all.

Argentina. Brilliant. And brilliantly mad.

Biggest waste of petrol

This section is all about the most pointless road section of the season. And there can only be one winner. The drive from Poland to Lithuania on day one of the Mikolajki-based event made no sense. The 300-mile round trip took seven hours and was made entirely worthless when two stages were cancelled because the roads turned out to be made of porridge oats.

That said, it's not every day you get to drive into another timezone in the middle of a rally. And there was a very nice coffee shop in Druskininkai.

Best news story of the season

Sebastien Ogier is going to Hyundai. Definitely. No doubt.

Hmm. Not quite.

He's off to Citroen this time. Abu Dhabi is paying all the bills. And this is for real. Definitely.

Err... he's staying at Volkswagen.

Oh well.

Ogier was definitely leaving VW, until he decided to stay put... © LAT

Speculating on the world champion's contract talks provided some fascinating mid-season copy, even if the eventual outcome was pretty predictable.

Breakfast of the season

Has to be Sunday morning in Finland. Among the boiled eggs, the gherkins and pickled herring, something wasn't quite right. Jari-Matti Latvala sat quietly in a corner, contemplating what would be the biggest day of his season to date. While Luis Moya, a double world champion turned guest programme coordinator, slots a couple of slices of toast in. Then engages in deep, Luis-type conversation.

Ten minutes later, the fire brigade is on its way and the entire hotel is being emptied, while the charred remains of the Spaniard's breakfast are carefully extracted from the toaster. Moya's defence is straightforward: "The bread pops up in my toaster when it's done..."

Biggest shunt

Ogier's monster into (and through) the Armco on Peterberg, the first stage on Saturday morning on Rally Germany. He'd already put the Polo off the road and into the vineyards on Friday, but 12 hours later he really rattled the thing when he slammed into the steel flat chat. Still hard to watch without flinching.

Sweetest tasting champagne

Easy. Thierry Neuville and the whole Hyundai team in Germany. Rolled it into the vineyards on Thursday, won it on Sunday.

Best bottle of beer

Neuville's Rally Germany win for Hyundai was a popular one © McKlein

Another Neuville shoo-in, this one for the Corona that got him and his i20 WRC to the finish in Mexico. Thirsty things those Hyundais...

Most emotional moment of the year

Mikko Hirvonen's departure from M-Sport. Apart from two years at Citroen, he's been part of the furniture at Cockermouth for ages. And the hugely down to earth Finn's farewell to genuine friends was a real tear-jerker in Wales this year. And, if you want to know why he went, have a look at this.

Almost the worst moment of the season

Reversing the wrong way down a motorway having already forced Kris Meeke to miss his flight. Not good. Fortunately, he saw the funny side. Funny side? Really?

Worst moment of the season

Managing to fall out with the world champion. Twice. Fortunately a good chat and a pint later in the year sorted things out. Bloody decent fella, and probably not good politic to be spending too much time on his bad side!

Best moment of the season

Now I will be nationalistic. Meeke's podium in Monte almost a year ago. I always resist the temptation to think I'm mates with drivers. It's a dangerous game - particularly when you disagree on their performance.

But I've known Kris a long time, through good times, bad times and very bad times. And when he bagged third on his full-time debut with the Citroen team, I was properly chuffed for him. He's worked harder than most people will know and seeing him and Paul Nagle in the post-event press conference was a great, great moment.