Acropolis Rally 2000
LEG ONE
The toughest rally in Europe started in the usual hot and dusty conditions with rumours flying that its presence in the WRC series is threatened as the series expands into the US next year. This year, on the first stage of the rally fastest was Peugeot's Marcus Gronholm. Second was, quite unexpectedly Ford's 'number three driver' Petter Solberg and third Colin McRae with an official works Ford Focus. Fourth was Kenneth Eriksson with the Hyundai. This showed that the top drivers were taking it relatively easy on the first stages as the conditoons were really rough. Freddy Loix of Mitsubishi had an off damaging the suspension and he became the first retiree within the top teams. Toni Gardemeister lost two minutes with broken power steering.
On SS 2 Colin McRae was fastest, but the margins were small and Gronholm kept his lead. Solberg was 4th fastest on the stage and was passed by McRae. The difference between Solberg and leader Gronholm was still only 2.2 secs. Eriksson was 4th, followed by Sainz, Makinen and Burns.
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| Gronholm's 206 after the crash (Photo by Reporter Images / ELPA) |
Stage three was a dramatic one. Gronholm hit a rock, rolled and lost a wheel. He managed to continue but is more than five minutes behind. Petter Solberg had an off and lost more than 8 minutes. Eriksson had engine problems and dropped to 8th place, but he stopped on the following liaison with a blown engine. Also Tommi Makinen damaged his rear suspension in an off. After all this Colin McRae was in the lead, followed by Carlos Sainz, Richard Burns, Didier Auriol and Juha Kankkunen.
Makinen damaged his Mitsubishi again on SS4 and had to retire after the stage. Fastest on stage 4 were Gronholm and Solberg, who both had had their cars fixed but were a long way back. McRae increased his lead over Sainz to 18.5 secs. Kankkunen passed Burns into third place, but was already 42 secs behind McRae. Auriol dropped because of a time penalty he got as the team took too long to fix the power steering of his Seat. Francois Delecour was elevated to 5th position and Japanese privateer Toshihiro Arai took the 6th spot with his Subaru.
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| Colin McRae had no problems on leg 1 (Photo by Reporter Images / ELPA) |
On the final stage of the day, SS5, both works Subaru drivers Burns and Kankkunen lost more than a minute to McRae. Burns reported a brake problem and Kankkunen had to stop on the stage to put out a small fire in the gearbox. McRae had no problems and set a blistering time, extending his lead to Sainz by 20 secs. The Scotsman starts the second leg in a lead of 38 seconds. Delecour moved past the troubled Subaru duo into third.
Almost everyone had problems on the first day of the rally. The toughness of the rally is illustrated by the fact that already after leg 1 there are virtually unknown drivers in the top 10, like Stephen Finlay in 6th and Saudi driver Abdullah Bakhashab, who got his Toyota in 8th place overall with a problem-free drive. The question now is whose equipment will take two more days of this?
Situation after stage 5 of 19:
1. Colin McRae (SCO) Ford - 1.04.09,6
2. Carlos Sainz (ESP) Ford +38,5
3. Francois Delecour (FRA) Peugeot +1.12,2
4. Juha Kankkunen (FIN) Subaru +2.00,8
5. Richard Burns (ENG) Subaru +2.08,9
6. Stephen Finlay (ENG) Ford +3.26,6
7. Toshihiro Arai (JPN) Subaru +3.30,0
8. Abdullah Bakhashab (SAU) Toyota +4.00,4
9. Armin Schwarz (GER) Skoda +4.04,2
10. John Papadamitriou (GRE) Subaru +4,22.2
11. Alister McRae (SCO) Hyundai +4.38,5
