Neste Rally Finland 1998

The Finnish round of the World Rally Championship, Neste Rally Finland, attracted a large entry of works teams. As a welcomed addition to the championship Seat introduced the Cordoba WRC, driven by Harri Rovanpera and Oriol Gomez.

Subaru replaced Piero Liatti with Finnish driver Jarmo Kytolehto who has done very well in Rally Finland in recent years. Toyota also gave a ride for a Finnish driver, Marcus Gronholm. This event is very hard to conquer for drivers not familiar with the extremely fast and jumpy roads.

As the race started in rainy and slippery conditions, Tommi Makinen, four time winner of Rally Finland, took the lead, followed by Colin Mcrae, Carlos Sainz and Juha Kankkunen.

Sainz shows how to jump... (Photo by TTE)

McRae's good start came to nothing as on the 4th special stage he had an off damaging the rear wheel which bent completely sideways. He was able to finish the stage but as there was no service McRae had to retire. Several drivers had problems at the same very slippery corner. One of them was Jouko Puhakka who was already leading group N with a large margin.

After the firs day Makinen was leading Sainz by seven secs. Third was Kankkunen, three secs behind Sainz and seven secs behind him was Marcus Gronholm.Then came Didier Auriol and Richard Burns.

The second and longest day was as rainy as the first. Makinen gradually built his lead into 34 secs. Sainz was still second and Kankkunen, who complained that the old Ford Escort just isn't fast enough. He is already looking forward to next year and the introduction of the new Ford Focus WRC car. Next year also Colin McRae will join Ford so that should be interesting.

Marcus Gronholm was unluckiest of the top contenders during the second day. He was battling hard with Kankkunen and even Sainz but on SS 16 he had a puncture and apparenly the ATS mousse didn't work properly or the rim collapsed and Gronholm dropped into a ditch losing almost four minutes as the spectators lifted him back on the road.

Auriol was now 4th, already two minutes behind the leader. Then came Richard Burns who was having a battle with Thomas Radstrom. Gronholm dropped into 7th positon. 8th was Subaru's Jarmo Kytolehto who had problems on the first day and didn't show his best on the second, either. The legendary Ari Vatanen was enjoying himself on the 9th place with a Ford Escort WRC.

The weather cleared up on the last day but there was no change on the leaderboard. Surpassing Shekhar Mehta's previous record from the Safari Rally, Tommi Makinen took the 5th consecutive win of the Rally Finland. Makinen's errorless and constant drive gave no chances for others.

...as does Makinen. (Photo by Ralliart Mitsubishi)

Kankkunen still tried to catch Sainz on the last day but the Spaniard made no mistakes and kept his second position. Auriol was 4th and 5th was Richard Burns, an excellent result for the first timer. Radstrom was 6th and Gronholm, who was the fastest driver on the last day and took most stage victories in the rally. Kytolehto was 9th, but Vatanen disappointedly retired on one of the last stages with technical problems.

Group N was won by Gustavo Trelles and F2 by Alister McRae after a good battle with Toni Gardemeister who has inherited Harri Rovanpera's seat in the Seat Ibiza. Rovanpera finished the rally, which Seat considered a test event for the new Cordoba, in 11th position.