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FIA RALLY: Propecia Rally of New Zealand, End of Leg 1 Report

15 July 2000

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

Following last night's spectacular opening ceremony in central Auckland the New Zealand Rally got underway in earnest this morning on six stages around the coastal town of Raglan, due south of Auckland, before returning to Manukau for a pair of stages at the familiar showground superspecial. Although cloudy the weather remained dry which was not good news for the early runners on the stages as they had the task of sweeping the roads clean of the loose gravel for following crews. Today's leg included two long stages but it is tomorrow when the drivers' stamina will be tested to the limits when they encounter SS12, the 59kms Parahi/Ararua stage.

Peugeot

Franois Delecour lived up to pre-event speculation that he could be a dark horse for victory this weekend by leading the rally over all of today's eight stages. The mercurial Frenchman was delighted with the handling of the 206WRC and boldly stated that, even if he'd been first on the road he'd still be leading! He did, however, admit that he was taking big risks during the day and doesn't fancy running at the head of the field tomorrow if it's wet. Marcus Gronholm suffered right front suspension problems after the jump on SS1 and was finding the stages quite slippery. Team orders are clearly in place in the French camp to make best use of Gronholm's championship placing. Delecour admitted at lunchtime that, "In the end it doesn't really matter what I do because I'll have to let Marcus through anyway."

Ford

Once again it has been Ford's apprentice driver Petter Solberg who has put the team's registered drivers Carlos Sainz and Colin McRae in the shade. The young Norwegian has been setting fastest times and, after the forest stages today, lay second overall to split the Peugeots. He said: "I've got good notes for this event and I'm able to run my own set-up. I'm under no pressure and even if Peugeot slows its drivers and I find myself first on the road tomorrow then that will just be another valuable lesson." Sainz found his suspension too soft on the opening stage and had a half spin but then had a big scare on stages 5 and 6 where, like some other crews, his tyres were down to the canvas. McRae had a fractured turbo waste gate early on but was able to make a temporary fix with some wire he found in the tool kit. "All I can say about today is that I'm looking forward to tomorrow!" he said.

Subaru

Richard Burns' position as Championship leader worked against him today. Running first on the road he was left frustrated as he was getting the worst of the conditions while later runners benefited from the roads cleaning with each car. Burns admitted that the conditions weren't as bad as he'd expected but he warned that, while he will be well placed to bounce back if it's dry again tomorrow, there could be problems if the weather turns to rain. Juha Kankkunen has enjoyed slightly better fortunes than his team mate because of his position further back. Apart from a puncture near the end of SS6 he has had a trouble-free day.

Hyundai

Both Accent WRCs lost turbo boost on the opening stage (Eriksson over the last 5kms, McRae just 3kms into the stage) but once they had been tended to at service the pair were flying over the next few stages. On SS3 Eriksson set fourth fastest time to uphold his belief that this event could establish the new car's performance levels while McRae was often beating his older brother on stage times. Eriksson was another driver to suffer excessive tyre wear on stages five and six while McRae again suffered a loss of power at the end of the Whaanga Coast road when the turbo manifold broke.

Mitsubishi

Tommi Makinen complained that his rear differential was making an odd noise on the opening stage. "It feels like it is locked all the time and it's making the car oversteer quite badly," he said. The opening stages were proving to be quite slippery and the Finn clearly hadn't got his settings properly sorted. Freddy Loix got off to a good start on SS1 but after 20kms his brakes were overheating and not working properly. After SS4 Makinen had his centre and rear differentials changed, while Loix needed a gearbox swap. However neither car was significantly improved by the changes and the team was left to ponder the possibility that the handling maladies were attributable to an electronic problem in the transmission.

SEAT

There was bitter disappointment for Toni Gardemeister who retired on the first stage today. The undoubted star of last year's New Zealand Rally first suffered a puncture 10kms into the stage. After twice spinning he stopped to change the wheel at 14kms but then crashed heavily off the road with 13kms to go, destroying the Cordoba E2 in the process. "Not even the steering wheel is salvageable," explained team manager Jaime Puig. Gardemeister's team mate Didier Auriol suffered initially with turbo waste gate problems that cost him power and the Frenchman has suffered a frustrating day at the foot of the top 10.

Other teams

One of the leading FIA Asia-Pacific contenders, Katsuhiko Taguchi, was sidelined by an accident at the same place as Toni Gardemeister, the Mitsubishi driver crashing out after the big jump at the most tricky part of the stage. In the FIA Teams Cup contest it is Toshihiro Arai who leads Hamed Al Wahaibi by almost 30 seconds. Group N is currently in the hands of Australian driver Cody Crocker's Subaru ahead of Manfred Stohl, Al Wahaibi and Reece Jones. Reigning Group N Champion Gustavo Trelles is fifth after suffering brake problems.

Tyre facts

Michelin: On the surprisingly dry track of today's first leg, all Michelin runners chose the Michelin Z and Michelin ZE patterns in the hard compound. Michelin drivers set the fastest time on all of today's first six stages (Peugeot's French driver Delecour on SS1, SS5 and SS6, Ford's Norwegian driver Solberg on SS2 and SS4 and Peugeot's Finnish driver Grnholm on SS3). They respectively fill the top three places on the overall classification with SS7 & 8 s till to run.

Pirelli: Faced with the problem of running first on the road with the inevitable time loss to following cars, Richard Burns tried a variety of Pirelli PZero tyres during the day in both the K and KM pattern. Different compounds were also tried as the Englishman attempted to stay close enough to the leaders that he can mount a challenge tomorrow. However, while a softer compound was felt to be the solution to the 'cleaning' problem it also led to increased tyre wear but Pirelli was happy to find that its tyres survived without problems. If the weather stays dry then the 'cleaning' problems will remain. If it should turn wet, the conditions should equalise the performance of each driver.

Text provided by FIA

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