China Rally 1999

The previous attempt to extend the WRC to Asia was not a very successful one as Rally Indonesia was only run twice until it was cancelled last year due to the unstable situation in Indonesia. This year, China Rally was added to the calendar and hopefully it has better chances also to stay in it. At least the enthusiasm of locals and support from the government are such that we should expect to see Rally China as a part of the WRC also in the future. The rally route, snaking on the hills north of Beijing in historical scenery around the Great Wall of China, was described by the drivers as being close in nature to the roads in Portugal or Greece. There were lots of holes and bumps, as well as loose rocks close to the surface of the road. Just before the event hard torrential rains destroyed some parts of the route and two special stages were cancelled on the first day.

Richard Burns - Robert Reid (Photo by STI)

The rally has previously been run as a part of the Asia Pacific series in which the Subaru team has been actively involved for some years. This maybe gave some advantage to the team as Richard Burns was the fastest driver on the first day of the rally. However, Colin McRae who won in China last year, hit a rock not marked in his notes on the first stage of the rally, broke the front suspension and had to retire on the spot. To make this an absolute disaster for the Ford team, their other driver, Thomas Radstrom, hit the same exact stone with the same exact result, even though he had slowed down after seeing his team mate on the side of the road. Admittedly, there was something tragicomic in the pictures of the two Focuses parked neatly and their crews standing and watching the rest of the rally go by.

Others, too, suffered from the muddy and slippery conditions. Tommi Makinen hit a tree on SS5 while he was leading the rally, losing some time and also picking up a 10 sec time penalty for arriving late to the time control after the service. Makinen's team mate Freddy Loix retired on SS7 after hitting a rock. Seat's Piero Liatti also retired on SS8, due to engine failure. After Makinen's problems, the lead of the rally was taken by Richard Burns, who was followed by Didier Auriol, 20 secs behind. Makinen was still 3rd, 12.6 secs behind Auriol. Then came Juha Kankkunen, Carlos Sainz and Harri Rovanpera.

Didier Auriol - Denis Giraudet (Photo by TTE)

Whereas the first day might have been about coping with the new circumstances, the second day of the rally was about battling for the lead. Didier Auriol was putting up fast stage times very consistently on the slightly drier conditions and moved ahead of Burns on SS14. Tommi Makinen was also closing to the leading duo, but on the final stage of the day, SS16, it started to rain again and the reigning champion hit a rock in a fast slippery corner and a front tyre bent under the car, making it impossible to continue.

Juha Kankkunen who was having tyre troubles and also had an off, dropped behind Sainz and was already four minutes behind the leader. With Sainz a minute behind Auriol, it was between Auriol and Burns to see who would win the first WRC event in China.

The last leg consisted of six extremely slippery stages. Didier Auriol mastered the treacherous conditions and managed to extend his victory margin to 55.8 seconds bringing Toyota their first victory this season. With Makinen out of the rally, Auriol now leads the championship with equal points to Makinen. The margins at the finish were really large all round, with Richard Burns taking the second position and Carlos Sainz finishing 3rd, 2:19 behind Auriol. Kankkunen was 4th after a troublesome rally, and Harri Rovanpera of Seat was 5th, not less than 9 minutes behind the winner. The final points scoring position went to the Turkish privateer Volkan Isik, who has shown pretty good speed in several events this year.

Gr. N was won by Gustavo Trelles, and F2 was dominated by Hyundai with Alister McRae taking the win and Kenneth Eriksson finishing second. Hyundai also announced the WRC version of the Accent, which will be introduced in Rally Britain.