Mexico road position will lose us time

The winner of the opening round of the 2010 World Rally Championship, Mikko Hirvonen, has admitted he will have a difficult time replicating his success on the second round of the series, Rally Mexico, which starts on 4 March.

As championship leader, the BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team driver will start Rally Mexico first in Friday’s running order, and will face the worst of the event’s notoriously loose gravel stage surface.

In contrast, the Finn’s chief rivals Sebastien Loeb and Dani Sordo are placed second and fourth in the start order and should benefit from a cleaner racing line.

"We’ll see what we can do but Mexico is going to be a tricky one," Hirvonen told wrc.com. "Obviously in Mexico road cleaning is a bigger deal than it was in Sweden, and if you’re first car on the road you’re going to be clearing on the first passes though the stages. So yes, it going to be difficult rally, and for sure we’re going to lose some time Friday. Between now and then we’ll see if there’s anything we can do about it."

Hirvonen won the opening round in Sweden from a position of first in the start order on Saturday and Sunday, but denied this would give him a psychological advantage going into Mexico.

"On snow and ice there was never going to be much of a difference between running first and second. It was always going to be more about the driving. That was where the differences were made," he said.

A week before Rally Mexico Hirvonen will drive his Ford Focus RS WRC for three days at a gravel test in Spain.