I’ve just got back from the first day of Wales Rally GB 2011, standing on the Great Orme in Llandudno to watch the cars do two runs to open the event. It’s the first time the stage has been run on the Orme for thirty years, so despite knowing it quite well from visits in my youth it was great to see competition cars tearing around the narrow singletrack road and precipitous drops. With a tight competition between Sebastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen, it’s all to play for. The cars weren’t the fastest over the Orme, as they had to use the same setup for the Clocaenog forest stage shortly after so were on gravel tyres rather than slicks. Nevertheless, there was plenty of excitement as Ogier hit a wall within a mile of the start, and Suarez rolled his Fiesta too. The weather held out all day, but the tight access to damaged cars meant that everything took a bit longer than anticipated; the final cars were taking their second runs in the dark. It was exciting to watch, but I didn’t envy them then having to drive to Clocaenog in the dark, run the stage, and return to Pac Fermé in Llandudno afterwards. At close of play this evening, Hirvonen is 0.7s seconds behind championship leader Loeb, so the next three days should be very entertaining!

Anyway, I had a great day; my shots are below…

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