It’s a flick. Just a flick. But it’s enough to upset the balance of the car. It’s enough to give Esapekka Lappi a feel for the Toyota Yaris Rally1 as he tips it into a lightning-fast right hander.
And it’s enough to remind the rest of the us that the gap between those who do and those who dream is just as big as it ever was.
If you want to see the clip I’m talking about, dive just shy of two minutes into DirtFish’s superb Toyota test video.
See what I mean? It’s that and a whole load of this that has got me enormously excited about the week that lies ahead.
I’ve been fortunate enough to cover the odd winter round of the World Rally Championship and the chance to stand at the side of the road, to watch in wonder, is something very, very special. Watching rally cars fly in Finland or carry crazy corner speed in Catalonia is a sight to behold, but it’s only when you see these cars committed to a full-speed assault between the snowbanks that you see the masters very much on top of their art.
It’s on these roads that van Gogh puts sunflowers on a blank canvas. All we can do it stand and stare.
And it’s rare to stare for longer than in northern Sweden this week.
It simply doesn’t make sense. These are the same conditions approached on tip-toes through a daily commute, yet these folk are using hands, head, feet and fingers similar to ours in such a way that beggars belief.
What on earth possesses Lappi to think about turning the car in at such speed? What’s the process that tells him – post-flick – to get straight back on the throttle?
The science is simple; tungsten-tipped studs claw at the ice, the tread pattern’s designed to shovel snow out of the way and compound-tech brings the chemical romance. What the crew do, is take that science and turn it into motorsport’s greatest spectacle.
In recent years, Torsby’s taken a bit of a beating for delivering an autumnal-themed winter.
A stand-in Lapland event last season took the sport back in time, back to when a winter rally was just that. And that’s what we need from Umeå this week.
And, at the time of writing… it’s raining. But we’re not going to dwell on that. Rain falling on already frozen water can be a good thing: it ices the ice.
And much as the snow makes the pictures look pretty, it’s H2O in its solid form that we’re really after. That gives the studs something to hold on to and makes the real-time watch the sight to behold it truly is.
When you go to spectate in Sweden, it’s rare that you find a junction or corner that’s right next to a main road. You have to trek through the countryside to find your spot – and that means using local access roads which are almost identical in contour, topography, width and surface. This is the first part of the eye-opening process for a Rally Sweden newbie.
Controlling a car – admittedly on small and doubtless well-worn button studs – is an enlightening experience. Unlike Kalle Rovanperä’s Toyota GR Yaris Rally1, your hire car is packed with tech to keep you on the straight and narrow.
Try to press on and the dash lights up like a Christmas tree, with anti-skid this and traction control that fizzing power from wheel-to-wheel in the blink of an eye.
First reaction? Turn it all off and watch this…
Second reaction? Hello ditch.
I know, I’ve been there. Both under my own steam and under the steam of some fairly esteemed editors of globally renowned weekly magazines.
Getting out of the ditch is when your eyes are fully opened. Unless you’re sensible and buy a pair of those spiky overshoe things, two things are going to happen within moments of you getting out to retrieve your motor from the ditch.
You’ll fall, quite spectacularly, on your a**.
Your car will remain in the ditch.
Leave it there, get off the road and walk in the deeper snow to the side of the stage.
Now your eyes are fully open, be prepared for your mouth to follow as your jaw heads south.
The first time you see a rally car in ‘stage’ mode – just a couple of hundred meters from where you’ve ‘parked’ your car – is an extraordinary moment. The speed’s at least twice, quite possibly three-times higher than you could ever have imagined.
Straight-line pace is impressive; braking from high-speed into a junction or hairpin comes impossibly late, but it’s when the drivers dial in some lock in top gear where mentally built pictures of what’s coming are distorted out of all recognition.
How? Just how? At that speed!
Downforce through the last generation of cars took that already insane corner speed to another level. Expect that to be dialled back slightly this week, but then don’t forget that this is the first time more than 500bhp has been let loose in Sweden since the end of 1986.
The spectacle will be enormous.
Welcome to Sweden. Welcome to winter.
