The organisers of the 2014 Vodafone Rally de Portugal reacted quickly and effectively last night to ensure that all drivers will be able to complete the full recce for the event, despite the first day being cut short due to flash flooding.
Torrential rain over the stages which made up the first day of the recce caused flash flooding which meant sections of the route were impassable to the crews, undertaking the recce in effectively road cars but with added safety measures.
Therefore, the organisers were faced with the task of rescheduling the recce so that all crews would be able to complete their two passes over each stage route, within the time constraints of notifying drivers in time for a revised start and fitting within the compact overall schedule of the event.
The first task was to establish exactly what the problems were. These affected the roads that make up two of the stages – SS3/6 Ourique and SS9/12 Santana de Serra. Some crews had managed to make it through each stage once while others, not at all.
With the news that the stages were impassable, the organisers immediately began to plan how to resolve the situation. Every event has a contingency plan for this kind of problem and the Rally de Portugal organisers have been running this event, in the Algarve, for almost ten years and were able to implement their plan quickly and effectively.
The main constraints were to make the necessary decisions and notify drivers early enough on Tuesday evening so that they were aware of the revised schedule (with a likely earlier start) before they needed to get some sleep.
The revised plan means that in addition to the three stages originally scheduled to be recced on Wednesday, the uncompleted stages from Tuesday will also be recce’d today. The drivers were permitted to begin their recce at 06.30 with no actual scheduled time to recce each stage. However, the rule stating that each route may only be driven twice remains in place. Therefore, for crews that were able to drive one pass on Tuesday, they will only be allowed one additional pass on Wednesday.
This element of the recce must be completed within an eight-hour window, since the official event shakedown begins at 14.30, using the Vale de Judea route close to the event HQ at the Algarve Stadium just outside Faro, where the day dawned with blue skies.
The weather forecast for the rally itself continues to look promising, with sunny spells and increasing temperatures predicted with no additional rain forecast for the rally itself.
The organisers of the 2014 Vodafone Rally de Portugal reacted quickly and effectively last night to ensure that all drivers will be able to complete the full recce for the event, despite the first day being cut short due to flash flooding.
Torrential rain over the stages which made up the first day of the recce caused flash flooding which meant sections of the route were impassable to the crews, undertaking the recce in effectively road cars but with added safety measures.
Therefore, the organisers were faced with the task of rescheduling the recce so that all crews would be able to complete their two passes over each stage route, within the time constraints of notifying drivers in time for a revised start and fitting within the compact overall schedule of the event.
The first task was to establish exactly what the problems were. These affected the roads that make up two of the stages – SS3/6 Ourique and SS9/12 Santana de Serra. Some crews had managed to make it through each stage once while others, not at all.
With the news that the stages were impassable, the organisers immediately began to plan how to resolve the situation. Every event has a contingency plan for this kind of problem and the Rally de Portugal organisers have been running this event, in the Algarve, for almost ten years and were able to implement their plan quickly and effectively.
The main constraints were to make the necessary decisions and notify drivers early enough on Tuesday evening so that they were aware of the revised schedule (with a likely earlier start) before they needed to get some sleep.
The revised plan means that in addition to the three stages originally scheduled to be recced on Wednesday, the uncompleted stages from Tuesday will also be recce’d today. The drivers were permitted to begin their recce at 06.30 with no actual scheduled time to recce each stage. However, the rule stating that each route may only be driven twice remains in place. Therefore, for crews that were able to drive one pass on Tuesday, they will only be allowed one additional pass on Wednesday.
This element of the recce must be completed within an eight-hour window, since the official event shakedown begins at 14.30, using the Vale de Judea route close to the event HQ at the Algarve Stadium just outside Faro, where the day dawned with blue skies.
The weather forecast for the rally itself continues to look promising, with sunny spells and increasing temperatures predicted with no additional rain forecast for the rally itself.