McRae's third in a row in shocks the Finns
Rally Finland saw a healthy number of local privateers enter, among them the four-time champion Juha Kankkunen who was driving a Escort WRC. There was a new challenger unveiled as well as Toyota brought in their new Corolla WRC. Kankkunen started the rally in excellent form taking a couple of stage wins and battling for the lead with McRae and Mäkinen. Kankkunen took the rally lead on stage 7 but unfortunately his run ended three stages later when the water pump in his car broke. Mäkinen had issues as well, dropping him almost two minutes behind McRae to sixth overall. Sainz and privateer Kytölehto were promoted to podium places but they too were already over a minute behind the championship leader.
From then on it was calculated drive from McRae as he cruised to his third straight victory without issues. Didier Auriol had struggled early on with the setup of the new Corolla but managed to climb to second, just barely edging out Sainz who was disappointed in third. Mäkinen's comeback drive which saw him win six of the final day's eight stages only netted him fourth place.
There was new blood in the F2 category as well as Škoda brought their new Octavia Kit Car, piloted by Sibera and local drivers Mökkönen and Harkki. Despite promising speed (both Finns were constantly in top-5 in class) all three of the new Octavias would retire from the rally. Another promising newcomer was Hyundai who entered the championship with promising Italian Gilberto Pianezzola and experienced Finn Esa Saarenpää. Although not as fast the Octavia, Saarenpää was on course to finish fourth in the Coupé's début before making a costly mistake on last stage of the rally, dropping him to eight in class.
There was no coubt of the best team however. Volkswagen dominated the rally from the go with Stohl and Gardemeister both taking eight stage wins. Gap from Stohl in second to Opel privateer Svan in third was over two minutes. Nissan star Harri Rovanperä was the closest match to the VW pair but early engine issues costing him over four minutes prevented him from challenging for a home victory.
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Eriksson magic in Indonesia
After the fast and flowing Finnish stages it was a complete change in scenery as the teams headed to Indonesia. Toyota had done excellent job preparing for the rally as Kenneth Eriksson shot to the lead of the rally right out of the gates. At the end of day one his lead over Subaru's Richard Burns was 25 seconds. However the gaps overall were remarkably small as Auriol, Loix, Mäkinen and Grönholm were all within 45 seconds from the leading Swede. But where were title protagonists McRae and Sainz? McRae's rally went wrong already at the start of stage 1 as his Subaru refused to fire from the start line. Four and a half minutes of repairs later the Subaru driver was back on track. Sainz on the other hand was struggling with rhythm and finally went off on stage 6.
Last two days saw the top-6 shuffle positions around as Eriksson extended his lead and winning margin to almost 1,5 minutes. Six stage wins from 22 was the most of any driver, underlining the Toyota driver's excellent form. Richard Burns looked set to finish second but a spin into a ditch on the final test almost cost it. In the end he edged out Mäkinen by just half a second.
Kit car category was once again a VW show. Manfred Stohl took a commanding victory over his Austrian teammate Raimund Baumschlager. Rovanperä and Ford's Evans were the two closest to the VW's but both lost time dut to driving errors - Rovanperä even retiring due to one. That opened the door for Nissan's local ace Karamjit Singh to claim a proud third place finish. Pianezzola in fourth showed Hyundai's promising pace ahead of home round in San Remo.
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Reminders of things expected of the managers:
You may buy upgrades at any point of the season!
Please refer to the first post of this thread and the sheet (
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... =321095497) for more information.
Nissan are expected to introduce new car for the next rally (will be done automatically nevertheless).
Standings updated in the wiki:
https://formularejects.com/wiki/1997_Alt-WRC_season
Car market will follow soon!
San Remo and Australia will be run back-to-back before end of January.
