Rally of Great Britain 1999

The first day of the British rally was traditionally driven on parks around Cheltenham and the Silverstone cirquit. The tricky bit on these short and twisty Mickey Mouse stages is staying on the usually slippery roads and not hit anything.

Tommi Makinen and Marcus Gronholm were joint fastest on the first stage, and seven drivers were within 2 secs. On the second stage Juha Kankkunen took the lead of the rally and extended it by winning also stages 3 and 4. The Peugeots are going well, as Delecour is second after today's stages, followed closely by Gronholm.

Colin McRae hit a post on the first stage, denting the right door of his Ford Focus. He also experienced some transmission problems on SS4. Others, too, told that the wet asphalt roads were very slippery and there were a lot of spins and near-offs. On the last short stages of the day time differences between the top drivers closed up a bit.

Marcus Grönholm kept up with the leaders all day.

Richard Burns started his charge on Monday morning as the rally moved into the Welsh forests. He won first three stages of the day. Juha Kankkunen was second and Marcus Gronholm took the third place. On SS11 Gronholm, who was now really on the move, passed Kankkunen and was at that point only 2.8 secs behind leader Burns. The leading trio had pulled a gap of almost a minute to Carlos Sainz in fourth place.

Tommi Makinen hit a bank on SS9 and damaged the rear suspension of his Mitsubishi. He lost 40 secs and dropped to 10th. On the following stages he lost more time with the damaged car as the next service was after SS11. Makinen was now 10th, 2.42 behind the leader. Didier Auriol stalled on SS11 and lost a minute, dropping to 10th. Delecour lost even more time in an off and he is out of the top 10.

Richard Burns took the lead right from the morning.

On SS 12 Kankkunen regained the 2nd place and Burns pulled away again, which he continued to do on SS13, extending his lead to 26.7 secs. Carlos Sainz slipped in slow speed into a ditch and got stuck there for over four minutes, so his hopes for podium finish were over. This put McRae into 4th spot, one and a half minutes behind Burnsie. Rovanpera with the Seat is 5th and Gwyndaf Evans with his Seat Cordoba WRC is 7th. Toni Gardemeister retired the third Seat with clutch problems.

The final stage of the day (SS15) was total mayhem. There have been record crowds on the rally route this year and on the final stages the roads were so congested that the stages were declared full and no more people were admitted already couple of hours before the stages. This didn't help, as prior to the final stage many competitors were stuck in the traffic and arrived late to the start of the stage. The stage was finally suspended after only ten competitors had gone through.

Disaster struck - again - on Colin McRae, who crashed spectacularily hitting a parked car on SS15 and totalled the Focus once again. Thankfully the crew was unhurt in the accident. At the end of the day Burns was still in the lead, Kankkunen second 29 secs behind and Gronholm third, 15 secs behind Kankkunen. Harri Rovanpera is now 4th, even though he is three minutes behind the leader. Tommi Makinen is 5th and Didier Auriol 6th

The final day has been spent under the dominance of Richard Burns, who won five of the day's seven stages. SS16 was won by Francois Delecour, who was up to speed again. On SS18 many drivers suffered punctures, at least Tommi Mäkinen and Gwyndaf Evans finished the stage running on the rim only on one of the tires. Tapio Laukkanen retired from the lead of gr. F2.

Marcus Gronholm crashed out of the rally from a solid third position on SS 19. The Peugeot rolled six times in the crash. The crew was ok, though. Tommi Mäkinen's troublesome rally ended after the stage with engine problems. Also Armin Schwartz crashed and retired. Harri Rovanpera with the Seat was now third and Delecour had climbed to fourth. Didier Auriol was 5th.

Burnsie's party started back in Cheltenham

After Gronholm's retirement the two Subarus at the front could take it easy and secure a nice one-two victory to end the season. They were the only ones to have a relatively trouble-free run in the top ten. On the penultimate stage Auriol lost a wheel in an off. He was able to replace the wheel but the damage done caused him to retire after the stage. Thus he also lost the second place in the championship to Burns. Gwyndaf Evans retired on SS21 with a blown engine and so did Carlos Sainz, the reason being broken suspension. Delecour suffered from missing gears and he retired on the final stage.

The survivors behind the leading duo were Harri Rovanpera, who finished his final event at Seat in third place and Bruno Thiry, who brought Skoda its first ever championship points by finishing 4th. Thomas Radstrom finished, after many troubles, 5th and Freddy Loix 6th.