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 Network Q RAC Rally 1997Take a look at the RAC Rally official pages. And don't forget the UKMotorSport RAC Rally pages by John Upham. This season of WRC has certainly been spectacular with many great battles. The RAC Rally was a great finale for a great year. The rally HQ was this time in Cheltenham and the first leg consisted mostly of the traditional 'Mickey Mouse'-stages driven in parks and around race tracks. The second and third legs took the competitors to the Welsh gravel roads. The legendary Kielder forest stages in southern Scotland weren't included in the rally this year. The RAC always attracts a large entry and also some of the former champions. Ari Vatanen entered the rally with a privateer Ford Escort WRC, as well as Stig Blomqvist who drove the F2 Skoda Octavia. Apart from the normal works drivers Toyota gave a Corolla to Marcus Gronholm for his RAC debute. Subaru entered three drivers; both Kenneth Eriksson and Piero Liatti were backing up Colin McRae. Bruno Thiry, who made a full season contract for next year with Ford alongside Juha Kankkunen, entered an Escort sponsored by the Russian energy company Gazprom. The focus of attention was naturally on the two men competing for the championship title. Colin McRae's chances looked slim; he had to win, with Tommi Makinen not in the top 6. But knowing McRae's expertese in this rally, everything was still possible. The weather in Britain was typically wet and foggy. Fastest on the very slippery asphalt roads of the first leg was, as expected, Colin McRae, who after the 59 stage kilometers of the day led by 9 secs. Second was Juha Kankkunen who had the freedom to drive as fast as he could now that his team-mate Carlos Sainz had lost his chances for the title. Third was Dider Auriol and fourth Richard Burns with a Mitsubishi. Gronholm was 5th and Makinen, suffering from the flu, 6th. Kenneth Eriksson retired on the second stage with electrical problems. The second day started in the darkness and in an extremely thick fog. On the first stage of the day McRae just couldn't see anything and drove into the ditch on a virtually straight stretch of road. The damage wasn't serious but he lost 1 min 20 secs and dropped to 8th. After that Colin showed what he is made of. He started and incredible charge to keep the title hopes alive and at the end of the day he was back in the lead!
Richard Burns took the lead after Colin's incident and kept it all through the day in the muddy and slippery conditions. He got a 10 second penalty for too long service without which he would have started the last day leading the rally as Burns and McRae had identical times at the end of the second leg. Juha Kankkunen was third 1.16 behind the leaders, followed by Sainz and Gronholm. Tommi Makinen was still sixth, just trying to avoid mistakes, although on the longest stage of the rally, the 39km Hafren, he spinned at 190kmh. Luckily he didn't hit anything. Makinen also got a 20 sec penalty as the service solved some developing transmission problems. Didier Auriol had an off and retired on the penultimate stage of the day. Bruno Thiry retired on the same stage because of a fire, probably inspired by his sponsor. :) On the first stage of the last day Richard Burns lost four minutes in a puncture and dropped to fourth place. McRae was now truly in a league of his own and won the rally with a margin of 2.47. But, that wasn't enough to win the World Championship as Tommi Makinen, despite fever and tiredness, kept the 6th position in the rally he described as maybe the hardest in his career. This meant that Makinen took his second title in a row. For his co-driver Seppo Harjanne this was a great farewell race. He had decided to retire after the RAC and now he could do it as a three-time World Champion. Harjanne won his first title in 1985 with Timo Salonen.
Second in the rally was Juha Kankkunen, who will go hunting for his 5th WRC title next year as Ford's no. 1 driver. Carlos Sainz was 3rd in his last race for Ford and Richard Burns was a bit disappointedly 4th after a great race. Marcus Gronholm brought his Corolla to the finish in 5th place after an eventful race. A good showing from the debutant. Tommi Makinen was 6th, seven minutes behind the winner, followed by Piero Liatti. Ari Vatanen was 8th, he lost a lot of time with problems and couldn't keep up with the leaders as adapting to the conditions was difficult. Ari is the rally raid world champion this year. Gr F2 was won by Alister McRae but he was later disqualified as illegal parts were found from his suspension. 9th place overall and the group win thus went to Seat's Harri Rovanpera. Another long year is now over, and what a year it has been. We've seen great fights and the top teams have been extremely competitive. There are no signs this is going to change next year and with one more team in the competition the races may be even hotter than this year. Network Q RAC Rally ResultsChampionship standings |
