Monte Carlo Rally 1998

After a very short break a new World Rally Championship season started in the mountains of southern France. The legendary Monte Carlo Rally had been squeezed into the tight format of modern WRC events. This means three days of rallying with no real night stages. The tradition of starting the rally from various European cities before the actual start in Monaco has also been forgotten.

New in the WRC is timing with the accuracy of tenths of seconds. This reform finally brings WRC timing into the present and it should have been done years ago.

The teams are the same as in the end of last season the major driver change being Carlos Sainz' moving to Toyota. With him, Didier Auriol and the hich tech Corolla WRC Toyota team start their first full season since 1995 and the prospects definitely look good.

Ford has replaced Sainz with Bruno Thiry and Juha Kankkunen is now the no 1 driver in the team. The Escort has a new engine and a lot of other changes have been made, although most of them will be taken into use in Portugal as there wasn't enough time for testing during the winter break. Subaru's undisputed no 1 driver is still Colin McRae and it seems Piero Liatti will drive a full programme this year.

Mitsubishi are the only team still using the old gr A homologated car but that doesn't seem to slow them down at all. Tommi Makinen and Richard Burns will get the updated Evolution 5 version of the Lancer/Carisma for Rally Portugal.

Carlos Sainz in the new Corolla (Photo by TTE)

In Monte Carlo Rally the conditions can change from dry asphalt to ice and snow within one special stage, so tyre choices are crucial in this event. The first day was quite wet and there was a lot of snow on higher altitudes. On the first stage of the rally Juha Kankkunen made acquaintance with a railing damaging a rear wheel and losing time. The first stage was won by Didier Auriol but on the second he had an off and damaged the steering of the Corolla. SS2 was, quite incredibly, won by Gilles Panizzi with the F2 front wheel drive Peugeot, even though the stage was partly covered by snow.

The four remaining stages of the day were then won by Tommi Makinen who was charging despite suffering from pneumonia which had started again just before the rally much like during RAC. Makinen's speed owed to good tire choices. On the last stage of the day he made a huge gamble and won; knowing that the wet road was icing rapidly, he opted for unstudded rain tyres hoping that as the first car on the road he'd make the stage before there was too much ice. Tommi was 45 secs faster on the stage than anyone else, as others had to use studded tyres.

At the end of the day Makinen lead by 1:08 over Sainz, who clearly had learned the ways of his new Corolla.Piero Liatti was third, followed by Burns and McRae. Kankkunen was 6th after his troubles in the morning. Auriol had another off on SS6 and dropped out of top 10 almost 20 minutes behind.

Tommi Makinen ran out of luck on the first stage next morning. On the snowy stage he made an error, hit a bridge railing and dropped some 10 meters into a brook which, luckily enough, had very little water. Tommi and his new co-driver Risto Mannisenmaki were unhurt in the incident.

Juha Kankkunen

On the same stage only Sainz and Kankkunen of the top drivers made the right choice of narrow studded tires and it showed; after the stage Sainz was leading with a good margin and Kankkunen was now all of a sudden second in the rally. This pair dominated the day and in the evening Sainz was leading over Kankkunen by 55 secs. Third was Richard Burns in his first Monte, already two minutes behind the leader. The Subarus had been struggling for grip on the slippery conditions of the two first days. The Pirellis didn't seem to work at all on snow and ice compared to Michelins used by other teams.

The situation was quite different on the last day. The stages were driven on lower altitudes and the sun had come out. The Subarus were considerably faster on the dry tarmac and Richard Burns had to surrender to them.

Carlos Sainz made no mistakes during the last leg and he took the win in his first outing for Toyota. It was also the first victory for the new Corolla. Juha Kankkunen stayed second despite even having a small fire in the engine. At the finish he was 40.8 secs behind the winner.

The tight competition inside the Subaru team was won by Colin McRae who finished 3rd (-1:01) over Piero Liatti (-1:13) Burns was 5th (-1:22) after a great performance. Kankkunen's team-mate Bruno Thiry was 6th (-2:20) and Uwe Nittel with a gr A Mitsubishi finished 7th (-6:13).

F2 was won by Gilles Panizzi with the wonderfully fast and loud Peugeot 306 Maxi (8th overall). Didier Auriol was one of the fastest drivers in the rally but because of his accidents on the first day he finished 14th.

The 1998 season has been kicked off in an interesting fashion. Next up is Sweden, hopefully we'll see a lot of snow in the only real winter rally of the WRC!

Richard Burns (Photo by Mitsubishi Motors)