Acropolis Rally 1998

Due to my extremely busy schedual this week the report is less comprehensive than usual.

The Acropolis Rally was again a hard-fought battle on the tough and dusty gravel roads of Greece. World Champion Tommi Makinen, however, had to retire already on the first stage of the rally with an electrical failure. The fastest starter was Ford driver Bruno Thiry who took the initial lead, but his engine broke on SS5 and he had to retire from the lead. After Thiry's retirement Richard Burns, Colin Mcrae and Didier Auriol diced for the leading position and they finished the day with small margins with Burns in the lead. This wasn't good news for the Mitsubishi driver as being first on the road next day is a disadvantage in the Acropolis because of large amounts of loose rocks and dust on the road. Carlos Sainz, who was initially first on the road finished the day as low as on 7th position.

On the second day Burns lost over 40 seconds to Auriol and McRae and dropped to 5th. Auriol took the lead but McRae was very close all through the day, in the evening the difference was 4.8 secs. Juha Kankkunen was fast after some bad tyre choices in the morning. He rose to 3rd only 13 secs behind the leader. The fastest driver of the day was, however Sainz, who was 2 secs behind Kankkunen at the end of the day.

On the last day the top contenders were undoubtadly Kankkunen and Sainz, but both ran into problems in the morning. Sainz lost a lot of time with steering problems and dropped back to 7th. He was fast during the rest of the day and finished the rally on the 4th position. Kankkunen punctured both rear tyres on SS14 despite the mousse in the tyres. He lost some 30 secs and finished 3rd. Retirees of the last day were Richard Burns (broken rear suspension) and Piero Liatti, who went off the road from 4th position.

Didier Auriol held the lead of the rally until the penultimate stage when a heavy landing caused a fuel-pump problem and he lost 40 secs. All this meant that Colin McRae was left with the top place on the podium with a problem-free run. Colin's master plan was to save the car and that really paid of, putting him on the top of the drivers Championship standing.