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FIA Rally: 20th Argentina Rally 2000, End of Leg 2 Report

14 May 2000

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

20th Argentina Rally 2000
Round 6 of the FIA World Rally Championship
11-14th May 2000

The Argentina Rally moved into top gear today as Richard Burns set about slicing his overnight deficit and those ahead of him attempted to defend their positions. Light rain greeted the crews as they left Cordoba and headed south but this gradually worsened and by the afternoon the weather was really quite unpleasant. Burns set a string of fastest times to take the lead with one stage to go and resisted any temptation to play a tactical card to ensure that he was not first on the road into tomorrow's final leg around Mina Clavero. Looking ahead to the final day, Burns said: "The hardest day of the event is still to come. Stage 20 is the roughest of the event and there are three of the slowest, twistiest stages of the event so it's not going to be easy."

Subaru

Richard Burns set a string of fastest times during the day to overturn his 39s deficit and go six seconds clear at the head of the event with just the superspecial at Camping General San Martin to go. He extended that lead with another fastest time on the final stage. Burns has been in total control today but said: "Colin and Marcus are driving very well and it's not easy to predict the result except that it will be a big fight tomorrow. It hasn't been as easy to get places back here as it was in Portugal but I have no reason to think that I can't win. The car has been fine today and there's been no repaet of the engine problems from yesterday. We've definitely had the best tyres for the conditions and I've been really confident with them." Team mate Juha Kankkunen has been embroiled in a tense battle with World Champion Tommi Makinen today and took the advantage after the team changed his gearbox this afternoon. Looking ahead to tomorrow Kankkunen said: "If Tommi has got any ideas of winning this rally he's got to get ahead of me first!"

Ford

Following yesterday's wipeout for the SEAT team, Spain's misery was complete when Carlos Sainz hit the end of a steel barrier 600m from the end of SS11 and damaged the radiator too badly to continue. It was a blow to the Ford team as Sainz's team mate Colin McRae had just moved up to second place. McRae described Sainz's demise: "It was a tricky narrow left corner over a crest and if Carlos hadn't gone off there I'm pretty sure that someone else would have done." Sainz later admitted that he had taken the wrong line over the crest. McRae had his own scare a few stages later when he found the water crossing on SS13 much rougher than when he tackled it the first time on SS11. The rear of the car kicked high in the air and the front end took the full impact, damaging the radiator protection and sump shielding. Petter Solberg was fortunate that there were sufficient spectators on hand at that point as a similar incident left his car on its side before they manhandled it back onto its wheels.

Mitsubishi

Tommi Makinen again had to admit to a tyre choice that was too hard for the wet conditions on the opening pair of stages. "The problem was that we didn't know what the rain was going to do," he said. He also had a scare in the watersplash that Colin McRae encountered. Later in the day Makinen got the tyres right and confirmed that grip levels were quite high with the right combination. However the rough mature of SS12 caused his car to jump out of gear a few times. Freddy Loix also suffered from the same tyre choice as Makinen but was also having to be over-cautious on stages that he was driving for the first time. "Our notes are too slow," he admitted. The team adjusted his rear diff mapping later in the day and he also admitted to having his engine cut out a few times.

SEAT

After its retirement from the event yesterday SEAT stayed on for testing. The team found a stretch of road between Villa Carlos Paz and Mina Clavero where it could dam up a river and try to recreate the conditions that caused the clutch failures yesterday. Overnight the team had made modifications to the clutch and, despite Auriol driving flat out through water half a metre deep, the problem did not reappear and the team believes it has found the correct solution. Toni Gardemeister joined Auriol later having sent the morning carrying out an extensive tyre test.

Peugeot

Francois Delecour started the day with a misting windscreen and a rear diff problem but these were both fixed in service and since then the Frenchman has been fine. "I've been comparing my times today with Petter Solberg as he is the only other driver in a World Rally Car who hasn't been here before," he explained. Overnight leader Marcus Gronholm had a fairly trouble-free day but slipped back partly as a result of not being sure of the road on high speed stages such as SS15.

Hyundai

After last night's incident on the final stage where spectators threw rocks at several cars, Kenneth Eriksson had to start today with a replacement windscreen that did not have an effective de-misting system. As a result, on this morning's first stage, he was unable to clear the screen and the lack of visibility was the cause of his slow time. He also damaged the radiator fans in the watersplashes. Alister McRae's day had been punctuated with a few transmission problems although his main drama came on SS15 when he broke a drive shaft.

Other teams

The FIA Teams Cup competition looks to be comfortably in the hands of Team Atakan here in Argentina as Serkan Yazici is over five minutes clear of Frederic Dor. Group N, however, is a far closer affair with Gabriel Pozzo and Gustavo Trelles fighting hard for the advantage throughout the day.

Tyre facts

Pirelli: Richard Burns has set fastest time on all but one of today's seven stages using the soft KM6 tread pattern and compound throughout to move from an overnight sixth to lead the event into the final day. The KM tyre is specifically designed for soft and sandy conditions while the 6 compound is the softest available to the Pirelli crews on this event. It is expected that the same tyre will be the choice for tomorrow's stages if the weather conditions remain as they have done today.

Michelin: As anticipated, start order played an important part in the way today's scenario unfolded, with the first drivers on the road breaking and then brushing aside the damp upper surface crust to leave a firmer base for the next competitors through. However, the rain hasn't been heavy enough, nor the mud significant enough, for Peugeot to switch to the Michelin WB rain/mud tyre or Mitsubishi to run the narrow dimension Michelin ZE, patterns that the two Michelin partners registered with the FIA prior to the event. Michelin teams have used soft compounds (8) of the Michelin Z (Mitsubishi), Michelin ZA (Peugeot) or Michelin ZE (Ford), although the Mitsubishi pair did use the 9 compound for the first two stages before switching to the 8 for the remainder of the day.

Text Provided By FIA

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