Safari Rally, Kenya (Apr 4-7).
Here is the excellent official Swedish Rally homepage with up to date results.
Lars Norlander's Swedish Rally page.
This year the Swedish Rally got the honour of opening the World Rally Championship season. All the teams with full lineups were attracted to this superbly organized winter rally and the competition proved to be very close.
The conditions in Sweden at the start of the rally were cold but there wasn't too much snow, so the gravel underneath was very hard for the studded tires. Juha Kankkunen, despite of the banning of Toyota Team Europe, was the fastest starter with a Toyota Celica of Toyota Team Sweden, backed of course by the whole race organization of Toyota. On the third special stage Tommi Mäkinen of Mitsubishi gave a hint of things to come and took the lead. Another fast driver on the early stages was Swede Thomas Rådström, Kankkunen's teammate, who came within two seconds of Mäkinen before he lost his rear wheel drive and dropped somewhat in positions.
On the evening of the first day Carlos Sainz with the Repsol-coloured Ford entered the lead battle with Kankkunen and Mäkinen proving that the old Escort Cosworth still is a highly competitive rally machine. Ford's Francois Delecour had problems and complained about the handling of the car, as did Ari Vatanen.
The greatest negative surprise in the beginning of the rally were the Subarus who couldn't seem to get anything right. The greatest problem were the tires. The studs came off which of course affected the handling so that the cars were quite undriveable, complained Colin McRae and Kenneth Eriksson.
By the next morning stud problems were history. Heavy snowfall which continued all through the second day of the rally enabled studded tires to work the way they were supposed to. Makinen continued in the lead despite having to drive first in the snowy roads. Behind him, Sainz was still in charge crawling into the time difference little by little. At the end of the day he was only 15 secs behind the leader. Kankkunen stayed in third, complaining only that the Celica was too wide for the narrow roads with the snow banks waiting to catch the unwary.
The Subarus now picked up some speed and McRae took the fourth spot from Ari Vatanen, being in fact the fastest driver of the day. Kenneth Eriksson was now 5th. Didier Auriol, driving for Subaru in this rally, was having an exceptionally hard time at 11th, followed by Francois Delecour who still was having problems.
There were five special stages on the last day and nobody of the first four drivers couldn't do anything else than go absolutely flat out. Carlos Sainz was pressuring the leader Tommi Mäkinen all the time within ten to twenty soconds so Mäkinen was allowed no mistakes whatsoever. The difference before the last stage was 14 seconds but on the last SS Tommi gained another 9 secs on Carlos and so he took his second WRC win and proved again to be a really strong contender for the championship title. Sainz was also very happy with the result and most importantly he can now be sure of Ford's competitiveness in WRC.
On the first stage of the day Kankkunen had a minor off which brought McRae very close behind him. On the remaining stages Colin drove furiously while Juha still was unconfortable with the wide wheelbase of the car. This meant that Colin McRae was on the podium with the third place and Kankkunen was 4th 23 secs behind his rival.
The unluckiest driver of all on the last day was Ari Vatanen who drive off the road and retired with damaged car on the second stage of the day. Last year's winner Kenneth Eriksson, who in fact took the position from Ari even before the incident, finished fifth ahead of Thomas Rådström of Sweden and Finn Marcus Grönhölm, whose performance was very respectable with a privately entered Toyota.
The Swedish Rally as the only true winter rally in the calendar was again a fine event and kicked on the way a season which, after all, promises to be a great one.
Pos.No Driver Nation Make GroupClass Total Diff 1 7 Tommi Mäkinen Fin Mitsub A/ 1 8/ 1 4.37.10 2 4 Carlos Sainz E Ford A/ 2 8/ 2 4.37.33 :23 3 1 Colin McRae GB Subaru A/ 3 8/ 3 4.38.15 1:05 4 12 Juha Kankkunen Fin Toyota A/ 4 8/ 4 4.38.38 1:28 5 2 Kenneth Eriksson S Subaru A/ 5 8/ 5 4.39.36 2:26 6 11 Thomas Rådström S Toyota A/ 6 8/ 6 4.40.00 2:50 7 17 Marcus Grönholm FIN Toyota A/ 7 8/ 7 4.41.58 4:48 8 6 Stig Blomqvist S Ford A/ 8 8/ 8 4.42.56 5:46 9 15 Tomas Jansson S Toyota A/ 9 8/ 9 4.43.54 6:44 10 3 Didier Auriol F Subaru A/10 8/10 4.43.56 6:46 11 5 Francois Delecour F Ford A/11 8/11 4.44.43 7:33 12 10 Piero Liatti I Subaru A/12 8/12 4.47.30 10:20 13 28 Per Svan S Ford A/13 8/13 4.48.10 11:00 14 8 Kenneth Bäcklund S Mitsub N/ 1 4/ 1 4.51.15 14:05 15 29 S-O Walfridsson S Mitsub N/ 2 4/ 2 4.53.54 16:44