Hi

First of all you should know that in a break from tradition, this hasn’t been written by Molly! Instead I (Seb) have put fingers to keyboard to bring you an update.

So in her last blog Molly promised to tell of some of the more amusing things that have happened this year, and seeing as she’s flat out at the moment trying to secure the budget to compete next year, I thought I’d recount a few of my anecdotes from the year.

I joined the ‘party’ mid-way through the year and at the time I’m not sure I’d fully appreciated what I was letting myself in for! Though I’ve experienced a variety of different rallies, drivers and challenging scenarios in the past, some of the adventures we’ve had this year have been a real rollercoaster of emotions – both on and off the stages. I've heard a few of the stories from the early part of the year, including driving a rally car and all its supplies from the UK to Sweden to go driving on a frozen lake - further and colder than you would imagine I'm reliably informed. Also the countless dramas involving the test and recce car that preceded Rally de Portugal. But as I didn't experience those first hand I'll skip onto the bits I know best.

One of the first things we did was attend the Goodwood Festival of Speed and as we were competing on the Forest Stage we were fortunate enough to be granted access to the BlackRock Drivers’ Club – essentially the exclusive chill-out area for all the Motorsport stars attending the festival. It was incredible to be around such people as Jenson Button, Mark Webber and Ken Block amongst a host of other legends of the sport. We did feel slightly out of place though when were taken on a golf buggy ride to get to the main entrance where hundreds of fans were waiting to get an autograph of their hero’s – the look of disappointment when we stepped off the buggy was amusing to say the least! On the Sunday afternoon we were also honoured to receive a Driver of the Day award, which meant our little Fiesta was mixing it up with cars of much greater pedigree in the winners enclosure on the lawns in front of the impressive Goodwood House. A very pleasant start to the Summer!

With little time to rest it was a quick turnaround (a common theme!) and we were off on our monster European tour. This had been weeks in the planning and it’s just as well Skype and emails are free as the amount of conversations between Molly’s mum and I would surely run into days. A consistent feature of the four week trip was the, how can we say… 'intermittent' performance of the van we were using to tow Molly's own rally car around the various events and tests we were doing. The trials and tribulations involving it are fairly well documented in the earlier blogs, suffice to say that it became a source of constant frustration, bemusement and ultimately amusement as we fixed problems only for another twist to appear! It's fair to say that those unlucky enough to travel in it often had less sleep than those happily motoring along in the recce car, and I think we'd both had enough when it stopped for the 12th? time in one day when returning to the UK from Germany. Poor Molly was the only one left to fix it in the pitch black on the motorway hard shoulder as I'd not seen the van limp to the side of the road in the rear view mirror! Thankfully, I can report that the van is now fit and healthy once more and was trouble free when used for servicing us on Rally of Scotland.

You may remember around that time that Molly was doing some video blogs and though not all that obvious, myself and Mattie, who did an awesome job helping us on the mega road trip, made a cameo appearance in the background of blog #2 and #3, see if you can spot us! Not content with our supporting role, Molly decided to turn the camera on me for #5 when recceing in Finland, though what happened after never saw the light of day until now, as I took it upon myself to record my own ‘Alternative Video Blog’.  I felt it gave a better insight into what really goes on when I’m driving…

In fact, I’ve driven the car on a few occasions on road sections of rally and recce, not just to let Molly take a rest but because I really enjoy driving too. So Molly has had the opportunity to co-drive a few times with varying results…

The intentions were good, and while my silky smooth driving meant we drove 80Km and into the Service Area with Molly still asleep, I think we’re best off sticking to the normal side of the car!

Rally de France provided a big surprise at the ceremonial start in central Strasbourg when we received one of the loudest welcomes of all the competitors, except perhaps some local guy called Sebastien Loeb! Molly's fanatical Belgian Fan Club had increased its membership by more than 500% and now had a full size professional banner and hats to wave at us on the stages. They'd also been to show their support in Sardinia and Germany and their enthusiasm was fantastic, it certainly made us smile when we passed them on the rally.

Rally GB didn’t get off to the best start when we punctured less than 1km into the first gravel stage. With a long way still to go we pulled over (after nearly going off road!) and set about changing the wheel in the dark. A quick change was in progress until it came to dropping the car off the jack, that wouldn’t go down. Whilst I was fiddling with the jack Molly was trying to move the car and opened the door to a loud shriek! The position of the jack meant that my finger was crushed between it and the door! Thankfully the adrenalin was pumping and so the finger didn’t hurt too much. Having lost more than 4 minutes with the problems we jumped back in and I started calling the notes again, though the first few hundred metres were from memory as I was still getting my book back out!

So there are the highlights of the year, or at least all the ones that can be published! It’s been a thoroughly enjoyable year, we're hoping for more of the same next year.

Cheers
Seb

* As an extra special bonus because it’s Christmas we’ve added some more pictures below (consider them the out-takes while the credits roll), so a special thanks to:

Fabrizia for her advice, humour and friendship

Mentor Neal Bates for washing Molly’s car :p

Mattie for putting up with the van, rally car electrics, runs in a swamp etc. sorry! Also for the hilarious exchange pictured here explaining suspension & vehicle dynamics!

Molly’s sister Jane for her legal advice helping us out in a few situations! Caption Competition anyone?!

John McKillop, Ronan ‘Wrong way round’ & Alan ‘masterchef’ Bolton for keeping us going on Rally of Scotland

Martin, Alan and all the guys at CA1 Sport for prepping the Fiesta

Teemu Horkama for sorting out all things Scandinavian for us particularly at desperate times (all we had was a pic of the lovely sausages he gave us!)

Wolly Burgel for his hospitality and the beer ;-) and Udo Schutt for fixing the van almost immediately when no VW dealer would take an interest

Rich ‘Team Manager’ Millener and Jonny Cunningham for servicing in Estonia and great banter

The McCormack family - there's not enough room to list how much they've helped us out!

Merry Christmas
Molly & Seb

Hi everyone

Wow! December already. What a year 2011 has been.  I would like to thank a few people who’ve helped me through one of the biggest years of my life, starting with Pirelli. What an incredible experience they have given me, and the other Pirelli Star Drivers who have done the Academy this year.

I still remember the last round of the British Rally Championship in Yorkshire, September 2010 and I had absolutely no idea of what I was doing the next year or where I would get the funding from. A month later it was the Pirelli Star Driver Shootout in Spain and the chance of competing in the World Rally Championship Academy – way beyond anything I could have dreamed of.

And getting that far wouldn’t have happened without the FIA Women in Motorsport, and the long-term support I’ve had from the Australian Motor Sport Foundation, VDG, Summit Innovations, Trenching Systems Australia and the Supporters Group who’ve helped me get to this point.  It’s been a busy year trying to make the most of the opportunity that their support has given me, and I couldn’t have done it without them.

Naturally, the year has not been without its trials and tribulations – and a few adventures too! But everywhere we have been, and through everything that has happened, I have been amazed at the incredible help we have received all along the way.

I think back to the first round – Rally Portugal – which was such a massive jump in the deep end. So many local people helped us out when we had problems with the test car, towing us to workshops, and helping find a recce car for us, and all that sort of thing.  Or in Germany, when we were given free entry to another rally, and we had our own marching band! Or the rally in Sardinia – we had a seven-hour wait for a recovery vehicle, which turned into a seven-hour feast with some of the local spectators!  It just seemed that it didn’t matter what country we were in, where we couldn’t speak a word of the language, there was always someone happy to help us, happy to do something for no reward, just to help you out. It was just pretty special.

I also want to thank you – all the supporters. I’ve been overwhelmed and humbled by how many messages of support we’ve had. And it doesn’t matter whether we’re having a good rally or a bad rally, that support is always there. It’s hard to explain how much it means, especially when things aren’t going well, and it has been fantastic. Thank you very much.

Obviously the year wouldn’t have been as productive as it has been without the help I received from people like Michèle Mouton, Fabrizia Pons, Neal Bates and Vittorio Caneva.I am forever grateful to them for sharing their experience and expertise, and for their encouragement.

Of course I would also like to mention Seb – he has been a fantastic help this year and put in a lot of hard work. His knowledge of the WRC rounds and attention to detail has helped enormously in terms of our progress and I look forward to working with him next year. And last, but definitely not least, to the best parents in the world, for all their love, support and encouragement. Although they now have two puppies to replace the noise in the house my sister and I used to make before we moved overseas, I know they really do miss us .

I won’t close this by wishing you all a merry Christmas, because there will be another blog before then – and the next one (I promise) will lift the lid on some of the really funny little things that happened this year.

Cheers Molly

Hi everyone

It's nearly two weeks after Rally GB ended, my apologies for taking so long to get this written.  It's the end of a whirlwind year, and I can’t believe the season over!

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Hi everyone

So time for a blog I think!  Well, Rally of Scotland, far out – what a wet event!  There had been another rally up there the week before so two rallies on the same roads within two weeks meant the roads were a bit rougher than usual. Even though the rally was very rough and tricky, the roads themselves are fantastic. I was actually quite happy that the conditions were wet and treacherous, because that’s exactly what we will be dealing with in Rally GB (final WRC round Nov 10 - 13).

We really enjoyed the event and we were really pleased with our pace with a couple of fastest stage times and some 2nd fastest times where the gaps to fastest were very close.  It was a pretty exciting moment in the car, sitting at the end-of-stage-control looking at the times on the board and realising we’d set a fastest time. It’s hard to describe that feeling. It’s the moment when all the hard work, and all the frustrations and all the disappointments disappear and all the efforts seem worthwhile, and it is very motivating!

Unfortunately a bolt in the control arm broke in the final forest stage and we didn’t finish the event. Although, we had achieved what we set out to achieve as far as stage times were concerned and we were very happy with that.

A huge thankyou to John, Ronan, Alan and Marty for coming over from Ireland with the car and looking after it for the event. (And Alan for his great cooking…. Nothing like an Irish stew on a freezing night out on an airfield!)

Going back to work after Scotland was a shock to the system after being away for a few weeks. I hadn’t been in the office since the Rally of France at the end of September!

Last week Seb and I went to the WRC round in Spain just to do the recce and we stayed on to watch the rally, and that’s quite difficult – just watching. I don’t think I’m a very good spectator! I found it very hard just standing around the service park. I felt a bit like a spare tyre!

The recce was good. It was tricky because it’s the first time I’ve really written notes on those type of roads. It’s double width tarmac but twisty and very technical.  Usually the roads we are driving on are only a car width wide, so you can easily see what the corners are like. But it’s a bit more technical trying to work out if you need the car to be on the inside at the end of the corner, or if you can let it run out, and how you write that in your notes.  So, I was glad that I wasn’t doing two passes and then going straight into the rally. It was good to drive the roads to be able to just see the roads and work out how you are going to change your notes to help drive it properly. So I think we are better prepared for, hopefully, when we get a chance to do that event – or anything similar.

Right now it’s all about preparing for Rally GB.  I’m going back to Italy next week to do another course at Vittorio Caneva's rally school.  I really enjoyed my last trip to Vittorio and he has been really helpful. When he invited me to go back I jumped at the opportunity.  From Italy I head to France for the next meeting of the Women & Motor Sport Commission in Paris. So, all in all, the lead up to Rally GB is pretty full on.

I can’t actually believe that the last round of the WRC Academy is coming up. What a huge year it has been. Talk to you again soon.