All top teams except Mitsubishi were present at the Rally Portugal which started on Tuesday. The first day was driven on asphalt, and Ford's Francois Delecour took the lead, followed by Juha Kankkunen. On SS 9 Delecour broke his front driving axle and Kankkunen got past him. At the end of the day he had taken his position back and was leading by 4 secs to both Kankkunen and Miki Biasion at equal 2nd. Andrea Aghini was driving a works Toyota for the first time and he was 4th. Didier Auriol was 5th 52 secs behind the leader.
On the first stage of the 2nd day disaster struck for Delecour. His engine blew at almost the same spot he had retired two years earlier. The rally had moved into gravel and the roads were in very bad condition due to heavy rains. Kankkunen was a bit faster than Biasion on the slippery roads. At the end of the Wednesday leg the order was Kankkunen, Biasion, Auriol, Sainz, McRae. Aghini had retired.
Didier Auriol started his charge on Thursday and he passed Biasion. It seems that Toyota had advantage of its traction control on the slippery conditions. Colin McRae of Subaru retired on SS 25 because of broken engine.
Auriol started the last leg on Friday 41 secs behind Kankkunen, and during the day they were quite even and finally the gap was 40 secs. This was Kankkunen's 21st WRC win. Auriol was threatened also by Biasion, who was at the finish only 10 secs behind him. Fourth in the rally was Carlos Sainz, 2.16 behind the winner, fifth Portuguese Fernando Peres (Ford Escort) already 28 minutes behind. 6th was the winner of gr. F2 Jose Macedo with a Renault Clio Williams.
The behaviour of the spectators has been a problem in Portugal and this year FIA had placed the rally under special observation. But this time it really was better! The drivers gave positive comments of the spectators not standing in the middle of the road as before, and the police was said to be doing a good job.
1. Juha Kankkunen Toyota 6:20.59 2. Didier Auriol Toyota -0.40 3. Massimo Biasion Ford -0.50 4. Carlos Sainz Subaru -2.16 5. Fernando Peres Ford -28.40 6. Jose Macedo Reanault -44.53 World Championship standing: 1. Juha Kankkunen 35 pts 2. Carlos Sainz 22 Massimo Biasion 22 4. Francois Delecour 20 5. Didier Auriol 15 6. Kenneth Eriksson 8
(C) 1994 WRC Infosystem By Petri Karonen (pakar@tukki.jyu.fi). May not be reproduced without author's permission. Permission is automatically granted for non-commercial use provided that the author is notified of the reproduction.