Rally Argentina 2000
LEG ONE
The World Rally Championship resumed after a month's spring break in Argentina with all works teams except Skoda participating. The rally started on Thursday with two super specials driven in front of some 60.000 spectators. Subaru's Richard Burns was fastest on both stages, but Marcus Gronholm wasn't much slower, as he was after two stages only 0.4 seconds behind the Briton. Others weren't far back, either.
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| Marcus Gronholm - Timo Rautiainen (Photo by Peugeot Sport) |
Peugeot's Marcus Gronholm took the lead on first of the proper gravel stages, SS3, by 8.7 seconds over Colin McRae. Burns, Sainz, Auriol, Makinen and Kankkunen followed with short margins. Francois Delecour lost ten minutes as the engine of the Peugeot caught fire. Richard Burns was fastest on stage 4, but Gronholm stayed in the lead by 8.3 secs. McRae got a 10 second penalty for arriving late at a time control after fixing a brake problem, and dropped to 5th. Auriol had a puncture and lost some seconds dropping to 7th, but the top 7 was still very close. 8th was Seat's Toni Gardemeister, 32 secs behind the leader.
Stage 5 was cancelled because there were too many spectators to run the stage safely. On SS6 Sainz was 12 seconds faster than Gronholm and the Spaniard was now only six tenths of a second behind. McRae took the third spot, 10 secs behind, with Burns, Makinen and Kankkunen breathing on his neck. For the Seats stage 6 was a total disaster as both Auriol and Gardemeister retired with clutch problems after crossing some water splashes on the stage. 7th in the rally was now Freddy Loix, already a minute behind the leaders.
Sainz took the lead from Gronholm by 2.5 secs on SS7. Burns made a bad tyre choice and dropped to 6th. Kankkunen passed both Burns and Makinen into fourth slot. Stage 8 was a sprint of only three kilometers and the positions remained stable. Gronholm cut Sainz' lead to 2.1 secs. Sainz was again fastest on the final stage of the day, SS9. He starts the second day 4.2 secs in front of the Finnish Peugeot driver. The two leaders pulled a little margin on others during the evening stages, as McRae in third place is 24 secs behind Sainz. Also Kankkunen, Makinen and Burns are still within reach of the top. Kenneth Eriksson had problems and dropped far with the Hyundai. 8th is now his team-mate Alister McRae.
Situation after stage 9 of 22:
1. Carlos Sainz (ESP) Ford - 1.27.42,3
2. Marcus Grönholm (FIN) Peugeot +4,2
3. Colin McRae (SCO) Ford +24,1
4. Juha Kankkunen (FIN) Subaru +31,6
5. Tommi Mäkinen (FIN) Mitsubishi +34,0
6. Richard Burns (ENG) Subaru +39,6
7. Freddy Loix (BEL) Mitsubishi +1.48,3
8. Alister McRae (SCO) Hyundai +2.43,8
