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FIA RALLY: Rally of Portugal: End of Leg 1 Report

18 March 2000

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

After last night's curtain-raising superspecial, the TAP Rally of started in earnest this morning with stages in the Fafe region to the north east of Porto. These stages are notoriously sandy and for the first run over the opening trio of tests the conditions at times resembled those seen on the Dakar, with thick clouds of dust marking the passage of each car. Tens of thousands of Portuguese fans lined the roads to see the action but, happily, they obeyed the safety officials' instructions and stayed out of danger. Today has been dramatic in terms of the possible FIA World Rally Championship outcome. Three potential 2000 Champions have retired today as the stages in the Fafe region took their toll on transmissions, engines and power-steering systems. With two more days to go, Portugal could yet prove to be one of the toughest events of the season. With only one short stage to end the leg (Lousada 5.30km), Peugeot's Finn Marcus Gronholm leads the field by 29,3 sec.

Subaru

Juha Kankkunen became the event's first major casualty when the Finn crashed the new Impreza WRC2000 on SS4. "I thought the stage had been swept more than it turned out," he admitted. "I was going too fast and went off 2kms into the stage." The accident damaged the radiator and he was unable to continue. Meanwhile team mate Richard Burns was setting the pace to move ahead on the stage where Kankkunen retired and with four fastest times on today's first six stages he was able to quickly extend that lead. However a power steering problem was not fixed at service and so Burns began to drop time over stages 8-10 and his rivals quickly overhauled him.

Peugeot

Marcus Gronholm led the Portugal Rally after last night's superspecial and remains in contention for victory despite having engine and clutch problems during the day. "This event is proving harder than I thought," he admitted. At one point his engine simply died 900 metres from the end of SS6 but luckily it fired up again and he was able to continue. Team mate Francois Delecour was ideally placed to give support to the Flying Finn but after a brush with the edge of the road just after the jump at Fafe, his Peugeot 206WRC suffered broken suspension. He immediately slipped to the foot of the top 10, dicing for position with the Portuguese 206WRC driven by local hero Adruzilo Lopes.

Mitsubishi

Tommi Makinen was angry at the event organisers when he discovered that the first three stages today had been regraded after the recce. What's the point of the recce if the stage conditions are going to be changed so dramatically afterwards?" he asked. His problems were made worse by his choice of too hard a tyre compound, the Championship leader was struggling to find grip and labouring outside the top 10. Team mate Freddy Loix was also unhappy with the handling of his car but was tracking Makinen and was able to go quicker once the front diff mapping was changed at the first service halt. On the second run over the first three stages, Makinen was much happier with his car but was delayed with a minor brake problem and then joined the list of retirements when he hit a tree stump and tore a front wheel off the car on SS9.

Ford

Colin McRae's hopes of repeating last year's flying start were dashed with a leaking power steering system. "We wanted to attack hard on the first three tests to make full use of our start position before we lost that advantage on the second runs over the stages but that hasn't happened," admitted McRae. "Without the problems I'm sure we could have built up a good lead quite quickly." Team mate Carlos Sainz was struggling with an understeering Focus and was having to use the handbrake on some corners. "We'll swap the car to Colin's settings and if that doesn't work then we'll have to invent something new!" he joked. McRae spun on SS7 and was badly delayed trying to turn the car round to restart the stage. Sainz's hopes of capitalising on his team mate's misfortune were dashed when he lost his power steering and, for the second event in succession, found himself wrestling a Ford Focus to the end of a stage. McRae's woes were complete when his engine blew up on SS9, spoiling what had been a promising first outing for the new power unit used in McRae's and Sainz's cars.

SEAT

Didier Auriol admitted that his chances of repeating his podium position in Kenya were not that high in Portugal as the shorter stages meant he was having to work a lot harder to stay with the leaders. "If you want to know how hard we are trying, take a look at where the car is landing! joked co-driver Denis Giraudet. Nevertheless the Frenchman was setting good times and was well clear of young Finn Toni Gardemeister who had taken a very different, and apparently unsuitable, tyre choice for the opening group of stages. He also suffered a diff problem during the day that kept him down the leaderboard.

Skoda

Armin Schwarz sent the Portuguese crowds wild this morning with the most spectacular jump ever seen at Fafe. Skoda's German ace was still airborne long after other drivers had landed! "When I was with Toyota in 1992 we practised that jump 100 times and so I knew I could take it flat out. In the Skoda it was like landing in a sofa!" he joked. The Octavia duo have continued to show improving pace but still have some way to go before they can maintain their record of scoring Championship points for the third event in succession. Schwarz found his engine down on power during the day and Luis Climent gained road penalties for being late out of service after the team fixed a problem with a pipe to the anti-lag system.

Hyundai

While Kenneth Eriksson was again showing that the new Accent WRC is capable of setting competitive times, team mate Alister McRae's Portuguese Rally was cut short with transmission problems on SS4. "This car could have been made for me," enthused the Swede early in the day although some of the car's magic was lost when he suffered a pressure loss in the centre-diff on SS7.

Other Teams

Serkan Yazici led the FIA Teams Cup for Toyota-equipped Team Atakan during this afternoon's stages with Frederic Dor second in his own Subaru over a minute adrift. Abdullah Bakhashab rolled the Toyota Team Saudi Arabia entry on today's first stage and Krzysztof Holowczyc retired the Turning Point Subaru when he ripped a wheel off on SS7. Harri Rovanpera's drive in the Grifone Toyota is producing good results, the Finn up to third after SS9 and regularly setting top three times. Group N seems to be firmly in the hands of Miguel Campos who is almost two minutes clear of the chasing pack including Uwe Nittel, Manfred Stohl, Claudio Menzi and Gustavo Trelles. All the leading Group N drivers are in Mitsubishis.

Text provided by FIA

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