Acropolis Rally 1999

Hot, dusty and rough. Those are the conditions in the Greek Acropolis Rally and this year was no exception. The roads were even rougher than usual, as many drivers reported the conditions resembled more a rally raid than a WRC event. Some special stages were also shortened because of this.

This was the first gravel rally for the Peugeot team and their 'gravel specialist' Marcus Gronholm. Gronholm, an experienced Finnish driver who is yet to make the final brakethrough in the WRC, did win the first superspecial of the rally driven outside of Athens and took the initial lead of the rally for Peugeot. Gronholm's story ended short, though, as on the first real stage of the rally he had to retire as the 206 suffocated in a water splash and didn't re-start.

The newly found speed of the Subarus continued in Greece and the first day was dominated by Burns and Kankkunen, although closely followed by Colin McRae and Carlos Sainz, both of whom saw their team-mates retire on SS 6; Didier Auriol had a suspension failure and Thomas Radstrom's engine expired. On the same stage Juha Kankkunen's ATS tyre shed its thread and he lost some time. At the end of the day Richard Burns was leading McRae by 16 secs, but at the final time control he took a 30 second penalty and dropped to 4th so that he didn't have to drive as the first car on the road and clean the dust and rocks from the road surface. Thus, McRae was the overnight leader followed by Tommi Makinen and Carlos Sainz.

Richard Burns / Robert Reid (Photo by Subaru WRT)

Burns' tactics paid off already on the first stage of the second day as he took the lead and kept it all through the day, although he almost rolled the car once. Makinen had several small problems and lost the second place to Sainz, who ended the day 17 secs behind the leader. Colin McRae retired with broken gearbox, as did Juha Kankkunen when his front suspension collapsed. Makinen's team-mate Freddy Loix was doing fine in 4th place, but over a minute behind Makinen.

The five stages driven on the final day didn't change the leaderboard much, even though Tommi Makinen broke his rear suspension on the first of the stages and lost more than a minute and another 50 secs in the service, which meant that Loix was in front of the reigning champion by one and a half minutes. Not surprisingly, a team order was issued and Loix slowed down on the final two stages to let Makinen by.

The rally was won by a joyous Richard Burns who was very confident already at the start of the rally. Carlos Sainz again achieved a strong second position, over a minute behind the winner and more than 2.5 minutes in front of the third place man, with a fairly trouble-free run. Consistency seems to be Toyota's weapon this year; they are clearly in the lead in manufacturers' points without winning any events yet. Makinen, again after a large number of troubles, finished 3rd, and Loix 4th. Estonian driver Markko Marttin was superbly 5th with a private Toyota Corolla WRC. Best of the local drivers was Leonidas Kirkos, who finished 6th. A notable point was that also both the Skoda WRC cars finished the rally, although outside top 10, so at least the Czech team has a durable car, now they have to find the speed.

Now it's time for a well earned break; the WRC will resume in New Zealand in the middle of July.