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 Monte Carlo Rally 1997The
official Monte Carlo Rally site. After a one year break the legendary Monte Carlo Rally opened the World Rally Championship season. It was also a start of a new era. Subaru and Ford introduced the racing machine of the future, the World Rally Car. The main differences to the group A cars are that only 20 specification cars have to be built, a turbocharger can be added to a normally aspirated engine, two-wheel drive can be changed into 4WD, and the chassis can be modified for larger wheels, extra air intakes, and better aerodynamics. The engine power of the World Rally Car is not greater than in gr. A, but with suspension and aerodynamic improvements they are expected to be faster. Mitsubishi still relies on the good old gr. A, and introduced the evolution IV version of the Lancer. Toyota is staying out of the manufacturers' championship for another year but they'll be back later this year with the World Rally Car based on the Corolla. The Monte Carlo Rally itself had a new format. The rally started and ended with a super special on the streets of the Monaco waterfront, partly on the same roads as the Formula One circuit. Last time real rally action was seen in Monaco was in 1955. Apart from the super special driven on Sunday the rally had three full days of racing on the mountain roads of southern France. The famous Monte night has, however, been omitted, so that there were no real night stages in the rally this year. The weather showed that it will be a factor already on the first super special. The asphalt was made very slippery by the rain, and most drivers took the special very carefully. It was won by Belgian Freddy Loix with a Toyota, followed by works drivers Sainz, McRae, and Liatti. The reigning World Champion Tommi Makinen of Mitsubishi was modestly 8th, but only six seconds behind. The real action started on Monday morning with a great battle between Tommi Makinen and Carlos Sainz of Ford. The two seemed to take turns in winning stages and at the end of the day Sainz was in the lead, but only by 3 seconds. The third man, Subaru's Piero Liatti was also showing good form, winning two stages, and ended the day only 24 secs behind the leader. Piero's team mate Colin McRae lost a minute on the 5th stage as he dived into a snow bank, needing spectator assistance to get back to the road. The conditions were mixed, wet asphalt in the valleys, wet snow and ice higher on the sides of the mountains, so tire choices were crucial. This was made even more difficult as changing of tires was only allowed after every other stage. The road conditions were also made surprising by the favourite spectator's sport: throwing snow on the otherwise clear turns. On the first stage Tuesday McRae slipped into the snow banks once again, this time hurting the supension on the left side of the car so that he had to retire at the end of the stage. The leading trio continued their close battle all through the day. Makinen got a slight advantage with successful tire choices and with a great performance on the last stage of the day, where he beat Liatti by 14 secs and Sainz by 18 secs. Liatti was still shining; at the end of the day he was second 3 secs in front of Sainz. Didier Auriol who was driving an RAS-team gr. A Ford retired from 5th position with broken transmission. Tommi Makinen started the last day in a very optimistic mood, nothing seemed to stop him from taking his first Monte win. But little did he know. Michelin chose totally wrong tires for him for the first two stages of the day, but this lost him only a few seconds. At the start of the 2nd stage Makinen and his co-driver Seppo Harjanne noticed that three of their tires had picked nails in them from somewhere. The ATS-tires were not flat, but filled with mousse that made them even worse to drive. As if this wasn't enough, on the 2nd stage they slipped out of the road, damaging the front and losing more than 2 minutes. They were able to continue, though. Piero Liatti inherited the lead, and with a superb drive on the last day of the rally he took his first ever WRC win. "This is just an unbelievable feeling," said an ecstatic Piero at the finish, adding that it is even more special to win on such an historic event as Monte Carlo. Carlos Sainz could't keep up with the Italian and was at the end 55 secs behind. Tommi Makinen managed to finish third, two minutes and 30 secs behind the winner. Ford's second driver Armin Schwarz, who won the last stage driven again in Monaco, was 4th and 5th was another German, Uwe Nittel, driving a gr. A Mitsubishi Lancer Evo III. 6th was quite surprisingly Danish driver Henrik Lungaard, who collected the last WRC point. WRC has this year the same point scoring system as F1: 10-6-4-3-2-1. Piero Liatti won't be able to take full advantage of his win as he shares the drive for Subaru with Kenneth Eriksson, who will drive the gravel rallies. The real contenders for the title this year are Carlos Sainz, Tommi Makinen, and despite his retirement in Monte, Colin McRae. Results of 1997 Monte Carlo Rally:
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