Rally New Zealand 2001

LEG ONE

The Propecia Rally New Zealand was this year moved from its traditional time at the beginning of August into the spring of New Zealand, which meant that the weather was much nicer for the spectators, but also the roads were dry, dusty, and covered with a layer of loose gravel. This caused the all too familiar problems of the first cars on the road getting a huge disadvantage, and silly tactics as nobody wants to start as the first car.

On the first leg it was championship leader Tommi Makinen, who suffered the most from having to drive as the first car. He lost more than two minutes and finished the day in 14th place. Colin McRae, driving as the second car on the road, finished the day quite impressively 4th, only 34 secs behind the leader, so Makinen's slow speed couldn't be explained solely by his position on the road, though.

The fastest man on leg 1 was Peugeot's Marcus Gronholm, who was leading after SS 5. The starting positions for the following day were decided by the results of SS 6, as the two final stages of the day were super specials. Gronholm intended to slow down on SS 6 in order to get the ideal starting position for the all important second leg, but the Peugeot team managed to mess things up by showing Gronholm the wrong split time on the stage, so that he was still second overall after the stage. The overnight leader was, historically, Hyundai's Kenneth Eriksson, a first one for the Korean team, although they were aided by the fact that nobody wanted to be first. Third in the rally was Carlos Sainz.

LEG TWO

The name of the second day was Richard Burns. Starting from 7th place, 48 secs behind, he won 6 of the leg's 8 stages and pulled an amazing lead of 42.6 secs. Burns' tactic was now to build a large enough lead for the final leg, so that nobody would be able to catch him. As expected, Kenneth Eriksson dropped far from the lead during the day. Colin McRae pretty much held on to his position, passing his Ford team-mate Sainz, while Peugeot's Harri Rovanpera, who had just signed for two full seasons in the team, rose into the podium fight, also getting by the Spaniard. There were no major retirements, even Francois Delecour, who rolled and damaged his Ford quite badly was able to go on.

LEG THREE

All but one of the final day's 8 stages were quite short, but now that the tactics were over, the real fight had begun. Colin McRae was determined to catch leader Burns, eating stage by stage the Englishman's advantage. After SS 22 of total 24 Burns' lead was down to 14 secs, but on SS 23 McRae spun and stalled the engine, losing some 40 seconds. This meant Richard Burns had an easy task to take the victory and also keep his championship aspirations alive.

There was also a huge fight going on for the third spot between Sainz, Rovanpera and Gronholm, which after McRae's spin became a fight for the second place on the final stage. Colin McRae managed to keep all three behind on the 10 kilometer stage and took the second place and important 6 points. As Tommi Makinen could't finish higher than 8th, McRae now is a joint championship leader with the Finn.

Marcus Gronholm was fastest of the contenders for the third place on SS 24, but made a jump start and was penalized 10 seconds. So, the final place on the podium went to Harri Rovanpera, who was followed by Sainz and Gronholm.

History was also made in Rally New Zealand, as for the first time in all WRC history all works nominated drivers reached the finish line, and there were 14 of them! Anyway, something is going to have to be done soon to prevent the ridiculous tactics because of road conditions. The best way to do it would probably be the system already tried out in Australia, in which the top ten or twenty drivers are allowed to pick their positions on the road, starting from the rally leader, or the championship leader on the first day of the event.

Results of Propecia Rally New Zealand:

1. Richard Burns (ENG) Subaru - 2.47.28,0
2. Colin McRae (SCO) Ford +44,6
3. Harri Rovanperä (FIN) Peugeot +50,1
4. Carlos Sainz (ESP) Ford +52,2
5. Marcus Grönholm (FIN) Peugeot +55,8
6. Didier Auriol (FRA) Peugeot +1.11,3
7. Petter Solberg (NOR) Subaru +2.15,8
8. Tommi Mäkinen (FIN) Mitsubishi +2.21,0
9. Alister McRae (SCO) Hyundai +3.33,8
10. Kenneth Eriksson (SWE) Hyundai +4.21,9
11. Freddy Loix (BEL) Mitsubishi +4.42,6
12. Francois Delecour (FRA) Ford +5.17,1
13. Possum Bourne (NZL) Subaru +7.27,5
14. Toshihiro Arai (JPN) Subaru +8.21,9
15. Toni Gardemeister (FIN) Mitsubishi +8.36,3