Take a look at the official Telstra Rally Australia homepage, which contains lots of information including the stage results and the full final standings in the rally.
Click here for Rally Australia '95 photos by Chris Richmond.
Photos by Darryl Peroni, Autoshot Motorsport Photography (dperoni@uniwa.uwa.edu.au)
Due to the FIA rotation system there was a lengthy pause in the World Rally Championship after New Zealand during which the teams had plenty of time for testing 'down under'. The pause had been exceptionally long for Carlos Sainz who injured his shoulder in a mountainbike accident in June and there was a lot of speculation as to how well he had recovered.
Rally Australia started on Friday with the Langley Park Super Stage which was run in the middle of Perth as the only stage of the day. The stage, attracting with its various sideshows 20.000 spectators on the scene, was won by Didier Auriol, with Juha Kankkunen, Armin Schwarz, Tommi Makinen, and Kenneth Eriksson very close behind.
The real rally started next morning but continued to be very close. Juha Kankkunen soon took the lead with Colin McRae, Auriol, Makinen and Eriksson competing over the next positions. This continued until SS 12 where Auriol rolled the car and had to retire at the end of the stage. Even before that, on SS 8, Carlos Sainz hit the bushes and holed the radiator resulting in overheating and retirement a couple of stages later. He was at the moment 6th but it was so early in the rally that it was difficult to judge if he is fully recovered or not.
Juha Kankkunen (left) and Colin McRae (right) were the
aerly leaders of the rally. 
At the end of the day the Langley Super Stage was run again and after that Kankkunen led by 17 seconds over Colin McRae. Six seconds behind came the Mitsubishis of both Makinen and Eriksson. Schwarz was 5th and 6th was Ford's Bruno Thiry who was still recovering mentally from an accident he had in Finland a couple of weeks earlier where he hit a spectator as he was driving a 'zero-car' at the 1000 Lakes Rally. The spectator who had walked on the middle of the road died in the accident.
On Sunday Juha Kankkunen had to drive as the first car on the road and sweep off the loose gravel on the road surface. This, combined with problems with the shock absorbers, made the road very slippery for him and caused him to drop into fourth place in the rally. In the front McRae and Eriksson were really flying and they swapped the lead several times during the day, ending up with equal times at the end of the day. Behind them, Tommi Makinen was showing a great performance despite a couple of small mistakes. Ford wasn't having a particularily good rally as both their drivers were quite inexperienced on the Western Australian gravel roads. Francois Delecour didn't improve his team's position by crashing his Escort spectacularily into a tree and retiring on SS 18.
Francois Delecour
On the last day Kenneth Eriksson was a little faster than Mcrae on almost all of the 9 stages so that he had taken a 24 second lead before the last stage which was 30kms long. McRae really charged on the last stage but spun and was at the end 19 seconds behind Eriksson who took his 4th WRC victory ever. "This was the best rally of my career", the more than happy Swede said at the finish. Rally Australia was also part of the Asia-Pacific Championship in which Eriksson increased his lead over the second-place man, who incidentally is Colin McRae.
Tommi Makinen lost the third spot to Juha Kankkunen after damaging the suspension of his Lancer on Monday morning. Kankkunen wasn't unhappy with being third; the result puts him in the front in the Championship standings. Fifth in the rally came Armin Schwarz of Toyota and 6th was Bruno Thiry. 7th was Fujimoto of Japan who is a strong contender in the Asia-Pacific series and 8th Ed Ordynski, winning the N category.
Tommi Makinen on two wheels.
The Championship situation is very exciting before the last two rallies this season. Next up is the Rally of Catalunya on Carlos Sainz' home ground, the twisty asphalt roads of north-eastern Spain.
1 Eriksson\Parmander S\S A Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 04:53:59 2 McRae\Ringer GB\GB A Subaru Impreza 555 04:54:18 3 Kankkunen\Grist FIN\GB A Toyota Celica GT4 04:55:54 4 Makinen\Harjanne FIN\FIN A Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 04:57:26 5 Schwarz\Wicha D\D A Toyota Celica GT4 04:58:10 6 Thiry\Prevot B\B A Ford Escort Cosworth 05:10:51 7 Fujimoto\Hertz J\S A Toyota Celica GT4 05:16:36 8 Ordynski\Stacey AUS\AUS N Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 05:21:05 9 Bates\Taylor AUS\AUS A Toyota Celica GT4 05:24:41 10 Recalde\Christie RA\RA N Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 05:25:53 11 Lieu\Ichino HK\J N Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 05:28:25 12 Kamioka\Gormley J\GB N Subaru Impreza 05:28:47 13 Singh\Teoh MAL\MAL N Mitsubishi Proton Wira 05:33:11 14 Beckton\Lee AUS\AUS N Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 05:35:24 15 Officer\Officer AUS\AUS A Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 05:36:17
1. Juha Kankkunen 62 2. Colin McRae 55 3. Didier Auriol 51 4. Carlos Sainz 50 5. Kenneth Eriksson 48 6. Tommi Makinen 38 7. Francois Delecour 36 8. Armin Schwarz 30 9. Bruno Thiry 26 10. Andrea Aghini 18 ...
1. Toyota 260 2. Mitsubishi 255 3. Subaru 222 4. Ford 184
Rally of Catalunya (Oct. 22-25)
