Acropolis Rally, Jun 1-5.
Daily information and results on the rally are provided by Mitsubishi and Subaru.
The World Rally Championship set foot on Asian soil for the first time as the teams came to the island of Sumatra to race in the Rally Indonesia. The three-day 1,288 km event which featured 27 stages covering 461 km of dirt roads running through the rubber and palm oil plantations of northern Sumatra. Rainstorms combined with the fine dust of the roads made the conditions very slippery; some drivers compared it to driving on ice without spiked tires.
As the rally commenced Tommi Makinen took the lead on the first stages, looking to take the third consecutive win in WRC. The first victim of the slippery roads was his team-mate Richard Burns who found a tree on the side of the first special stage which stopped him very effectively. The damage was so serious that he couldn't continue but couple of stages before the engine ran out of oil and he was out of the race.
On SS 7 Tommi Makinen was lucky to escape a fairly heavy cash into a bridge railing with only some suspension and body damage. He lost 11 seconds and Colin McRae who was very hungry for victory and let that show in his driving. At the end of the day McRae's lead was only 4 seconds to Makinen, though. Subaru's Kenneth Eriksson wasn't as lucky as Makinen; he hit the very same railing and had to retire from third position.
Juha Kankkunen was back in WRC with the Toyota Celica, backed this time by Toyota Australia, and took the third place after Eriksson's retirement. Fourth was Carlos Sainz who was having gearbox trouble all through the day.
On the first stage of the second day of the rally Makinen landed hard from a jump, damaging the radiator. This led to the overheating of the engine on the next stage and Tommi was out. McRae was now safely in the lead with a margin of 3 min 30 secs to Juha Kankkunen.
All the drivers suffered from the slippery roads, not least the third place man Carlos Sainz, who performed some pirouettes along the way. Other than that, with the gearbox problems solved he was having no other problems. In the fourth spot was now Piero Liatti who also had trouble in keeping the Subaru going to the right direction.
On the last day McRae was already heading for the podium in a secure lead, when on the third stage of the day he at the end of a long straight failed to turn into the corner and left the road in high speed resulting in a series of rolls for some 80 metres. Colin and co-driver Derek Ringer were OK but bitterly disappionted at the stupid mistake. Colin later explained that the slipperiness of the turn was a complete surprise for him and that there also had been some problems with the intercom.
Juha Kankkunen got the lead but only for three stages. He, much like his fellow countryman Makinen, landed heavily from a jump and damaged the intercooler, which caused him to lose power. On the next stage he lost more than one and a half minutes and Piero Liatti and Carlos Sainz sneaked past him.
The last few stages saw quite a close race between Sainz and Liatti but at the end Sainz was 23 seconds ahead and took a much needed victory for him and the Ford team. The win wasn't however without controversy as there were rumours of Sainz illegally adding water to the shock coolers when only adding fuel was allowed. The FIA investigated the claims and gave the Ford team a $20,000 fine but Sainz was not disqualified and stayed as the winner of Rally Indonesia.
Piero Liatti was delighted to take the second position for Subaru after a relatively trouble-free run. Juha Kankkunen was obviously a bit disappointed with the third place but later he joked that he was still the best privateer in the rally, afer all.
As there were so many retirements of top drivers the positions from 4th on were taken by Asian drivers led by Yoshio Fujimoto with the Toyota. The winner of gr. N was Hong Kong driver Michael Lieu, 6th overall. The Malesian Lancer-lookalike Proton Wira was again up there, finishing respectably 7th.
Next, the circus heads to the heat and dust of the Acropolis Rally in Greece.
1. C. Sainz/L. Moya E/E FORD ESCORT RS COSWORTH 5.30.00 2. P. Liatti/F. Ponz I/I SUBARU IMPREZA 555 5.30.23 3. J. Kankkunen/N. Grist FIN/GB TOYOTA CELICA GT FOUR 5.31.02 4. Y. Fujimoto/A. Hertz J/S TOYOTA CELICA GT FOUR 5.49.44 5. R. Pribadi/D. Giraudet RI/F TOYOTA CELICA GT FOUR 6.05.17 6. M. Lieu/Y. Nakahara HK/J SUBARU CG8 IMPREZA (N) 6.07.22 7. K. Singh/S. Sein MAL/MAL PROTON WIRA 6.13.40 8. S. Konishi/H. Ichino J/J SUBARU IMPREZA 6.15.08 9. I. Gading/K. Harilatu RI/RI SUBARU IMPREZA 6.15.55 10. B. Hartono/A. Baskoro RI/RI MITSUBISHI LANCER EVO III 6.21.20
1. Makinen 40 2. Sainz 35 3. Eriksson 23 Liatti 23 5. McRae 22 Kankkunen 22
1. Subaru 122 2. Mitsubishi 97 3. Ford 88
