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 Neste Rally Finland 1997Online result service and press bulletins are available at the Neste Rally Finland official site. Neste Rally Finland, formerly known as the 1000 Lakes Rally, was the venue Toyota chose to introduce the long-awaited Corolla World Rally Car. The drivers were Didier Auriol and Marcus Grönholm, a Finnish driver trying to make it into the big league. Toyota's official test driver Freddy Loix drove the old Celica in Finland.
After the four stages driven on the first day Marcus Grönholm with the brand new Toyota was, rather surprisingly, leading the rally by four seconds over another upcoming Finn, Jarmo Kytölehto who had been given the third works Ford Escort. Kytölehto was followed by the usual works drivers Juha Kankkunen, Tommi Mäkinen and Colin McRae. Carlos Sainz was second fastest at the end of the day but he took a tactical 11 second time penalty and dropped to 6th. This was because the dry and dusty roads were quite slippery for the first cars on the road. The time differences were really small, nobody just didn't want to be first on the road on the very long second day. There were no major problems for any of the top teams except for Freddy Loix who retired with electrical problems. The first stage on the second day was the end of Colin McRae's rally because of broken cam-belt, a problem that has been haunting Subaru all through this year. The competition continued as tight as ever on the very fast and jumpy roads of central Finland. After SS9 the leaders with equal times were Kankkunen and Sainz, which showed that Sainz' tactics had worked. Makinen was third 7 secs behind, followed by Grönholm and Eriksson with two second gaps. Didier Auriol lost a lot of time with driveshaft problems. The reigning World Champion Tommi Mäkinen started his charge on SS12, with only two superspecials to go on the second day. He was 11 secs faster on the stage than anyone else. Sainz was still in the lead with Makinen and Kankkunen now sharing the second spot, 4 secs behind the Spaniard. Gronholm, suffering from being first on the road, was 4th, 38 secs behind the leader and Kytolehto 5th (-1:06). For Subaru, the second day was a disaster, as Kenneth Eriksson stopped and retired on SS12 with similar problems to those of McRae. On the last short stages on Saturday, Tommi Makinen took the lead and extended it slightly on the Sunday morning stages. After SS20, with two stages to go, Makinen was leading Kankkunen by 14 secs. Kankkunen complained that he was trying his best but just couldn't catch Tommi. Sainz suffered from gearbox problems for couple of stages and had to retire on SS20 and say goodbye for the championship points he really would have needed. Marcus Grönholm who was now third also had to retire after stage 20 as the new Corolla had a problem in the fuel system. Finns now occupied all the top positions in the rally with Jarmo Kytolehto 3rd and Sebastian Lindholm 4th, showing how difficult it is for foreigners to conquer this fast paced rally. Tommi Mäkinen of Mitsubishi was finally the winner with a margin of 7 seconds, not pushing so hard on the last stage. This was his 4th win in Finland in a row, and makes him a very strong candidate for this year's championship title. Juha Kankkunen was second, not too disappointed. Kankkunen seems to have boosted the whole Ford team into a new rise. Kytolehto was 3rd and Lindholm 4th with clear margins, both also driving Ford Escort WRC's. The first non-Finnish driver was Swede Tomas 'Gullabo' Jansson, 5th. Group N was won by Jouko Puhakka with a Mitsubishi and gr. F2 winner was Seat's Harri Rovanpera. NHL hockey star Teemu Selänne also finished his second Rally Finland, he was 33rd with a gr. N Mitsubishi.
Results of 1997 Rally Finland:
Championship standings |
