Swedish Rally 2000
LEG ONE
Warm weather brought problems for the Swedish Rally even before the event started. The only true winter rally in the championship threatened to turn into a normal gravel rally as the temperatures were unusually mild in Sweden prior to the rally. Several stages had to be shortened because the roads had turned into soft mud. Also parts that were supposed to be driven on ice of a lake had to be scrapped. Stage seven was cancelled altogether. Swedish Rally also saw an introduction of another new WRC team as Hyundai started the rally with two Accent WRC's, driven by Kenneth Eriksson and Alister McRae.
Fastest on the first stage of the rally was Thomas Radstrom, who entered the event with a Toyota Corolla run by Toyota Sweden. Time differences were small, though, and on the second stage the lead was taken by Marcus Gronholm with the Peugeot 206. Peugeot hopefully has sorted out their cold weather starting problems, although temperatures in Sweden were above the freezing point. Richard Burns was fastest on the third stage and Colin McRae moved into third with the second fastest time. McRae was passed again by Tommi Makinen on SS4. Burns was charging and on SS5 he rose from 6th to 4th place.
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| Marcus Gronholm in the Peugeot 206 WRC |
Gronholm stayed in front all through the day, extending his lead slowly. After SS6 Radstrom was second, 10.8 secs behind Gronholm. Makinen was third, and fourth, only one second behind Makinen came Richard Burns. Colin McRae was in 5th place, while Carlos Sainz (6th) and Juha Kankkunen (7th) had dropped slightly. Kankkunen lost some time with a bad tyre choice on roads that were a difficult mix of ice and gravel.
After all nine of the day's stages Gronholm's lead was 15 seconds over Radstrom. Makinen was fast on the final stages of the day and finished the day third only three secs behind the Swede. McRae won the final stage of the day and took the 4th position. He was 24 secs behind the leader and 4 secs in front of Burns. Sainz was 6th and Kankkunen 7th, still only 42 secs behind Gronholm, so the leading drivers were still very close.
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| The new Hyundai Accent WRC and Kenneth Eriksson |
Seat entered three cars into the rally, the third one being driven by Harri Rovanpera, but their performance on the first leg was quite modest. Toni Gardemeister was fastest of the Seats, he is 9th, one minute and twenty secs behind the leader, chasing Francois Delecour in 8th position with the second Peugeot. The start of Hyundai's WRC effort wasn't very glorious, either, as Kenneth Eriksson's turbo blew on the first stage and he lost masses of time. He was able to continue and posted some very good stage times later, though. Alister McRae with the second Hyundai was15th, three minutes behind Gronholm.
Situation after 9/20 stages:
1. Marcus Grönholm (FIN) Peugeot - 1.06.27,2
2. Thomas Rådström (SWE) Toyota +15,0
3. Tommi Mäkinen (FIN) Mitsubishi +18,1
4. Colin McRae (SCO) Ford +24,3
5. Richard Burns (ENG) Subaru +28.4
6. Carlos Sainz (ESP) Ford +37,0
7. Juha Kankkunen (FIN) Subaru +42,9
8. Francois Delecour (FRA) Peugeot +1.07,0
9. Toni Gardemeister (FIN) Seat +1.21,3
10. Didier Auriol (FRA) Seat +2.03,4
11. Freddy Loix (BEL) Mitsubishi +2.09,1
12. Pasi Hagström (FIN) Toyota -
13. Harri Rovanperä (FIN) Seat +2.34,0
