Updates from the Rest of the Racing World
Atlas F1 Magazine Writer
Iceman Gronholm
By the end of the first day of the rally, it seemed obvious the rally belonged to Peugeot with Gronholm and Harri Rovanpera 40 seconds up on Colin McRae by the end of the first Leg, with the rest of the field spreadeagled behind. There was some thought that two of the first three cars on the road, Tommi Makinen and Carlos Sainz, who acted as road sweepers for the field, would come back into contention as they dropped away from the front but it never eventuated, Makinen stopping with engine failure before the first day was done, while fresh snow conspired to make Sainz's handicap bigger than at first thought.
On Leg 2, Gronholm asserted his dominance over his teammate, winning five of the six stages and by Leg 3 had motored calmly away to be able to cruise to an 84 second victory, and a two point lead in the World Championship. Rovanpera was never really troubled for second, and but for the lack of eight seconds Peugeot could have had a 1-2-3. Richard Burns seemed to acclimatise to the Pug halfway through the rally and was terrorising the top order on the final Leg, taking three stage wins, but Burns was unable to catch Carlos Sainz.
Mitsubishi looked set to take nothing from Sweden, but attrition, and the above mentioned Ford politicking, brought them two points for Alister McRae. Mitsubishi would still have to be disappointed as the team's third driver Jani Paasonen looked set to play a starring role in the rally early on. Paasonen had been as high as fourth and was traveling in sixth when, like Colin McRae, a shattered wheel delayed them significantly. Francois Delecour's chances ended with a quarter hour stay in a ditch. McRae climbed steadily through the placings as the rally wore on to end with a fierce fight against his older brother, which he won by less than half a second to claim sixth on the road. Paasonen would finish in 14th, Delecour 34th.
Hyundai was having one of the best rallies in its relatively short existence in WRC. Freddy Loix was flying on the first day, and Juha Kankkunen looked like the Juha of old. The Hyundais were benefiting from the very thing that cursed them in Australia last year, the need for road sweepers. Starting further down the order, the British Korean team had the snow cleared for them by the cars in front. Armin Schwarz too had looked good early until an excursion on Stage 4 ended his chances of a decent finish. Transmission problems plagued Kankkunen and Schwarz, ending with Schwarz's retirement after differential failure. A suspension failure would claim Loix whilst strongly in the points. An eighth for Kankkunen was no reward at all.
Attrition gave both Skodas hope of points, then dashed them. Kenneth Eriksson was running fifth going into the final stage but an overheating engine claimed the Octavia mid stage. Stig Blomqvist had a steady and uneventful drive to 15th. Toni Gardemeister crashed out of the rally on Leg 2.
Citroen made an appearance, running two cars. Sebastien Loeb, after nearly winning the Monte, was running second on the road in Sweden, but found an obstacle he couldn't overcome. Thomas Radstrom lost several minutes after getting bogged in the first Leg, then broke a wheel in the same corner that broke two other factory wheels. Both cars spun as well as slowing their chances and forcing stops to clear snow from the ducts and vents. They would finish, in 17th and 37th respectively.
Gronholm now leads the World Championship by two points over his more illustrious countryman from Subaru, with another two points to the ever consistent Sainz. It is still very early days as the circus heads south for the island nation of Cyprus.
Result of World Rally Championship, Round 2, Rally of Sweden:
Standings: Marcus Gronholm 12, Tommi Makinen 10, Carlos Sainz 8, Sebastien Loeb & Harri Rovanpera 6, Colin McRae 4, Richard Burns 3, Alister McRae 2, Petter Solberg 1
Manufacturers' standings: Peugeot 20, Ford 16, Subaru 12, Mitsubishi 3, Hyundai 1
Doran Does Daytona
It sounds simple, but it wasn't. They did disappear rapidly from the field at the start and had made most of the running. But they did loose the lead in the ninth hour after a pitstop involving a battery change left the Intersport Racing Lola-Judd to take up the lead. In the 20th hour the Intersport Lola broke a halfshaft with Jon Field at the wheel and had to be towed back to the pits, allowing the Dallara to sweep by.
The Jim Matthews Racing Riley & Scott, powered by an Elan engine similar to those used by Panoz, had a steady run through the race to finish six laps adrift of the Doran Dallara, and a great effort for its team of drivers, Jim Matthews, Guy Smith, IRL's Scott Sharp and NASCAR's Robby Gordon. Third SRP home and fourth outright was the Champion Racing Lola-Porsche.
Third place would be taken by the SRPII class car from Risi Competizione. The Lola-Nissan in the hands of Anthony Lazzaro, Bill Rand, Terry Borchellar and Ralf Kelleners led its class all day to finish 21 laps behind the winner. The team's lead car, the star studded van de Poele/Brabham/Johansson Ferrari 333SP crashed out of the event in the early morning. Second place in the SRPII class would be taken by the sixth placed Lola-Nissan from the Archangel Motorsports Services team. Third would the the Team Spencer Motorsports Kudzu-Mazda in 29th outright.
GT was claimed by the seventh placed Porsche GT3 driven by Buckler, Schrom, Bernhard & Bergmeister in what was, as expected, the closest class in the race. GT3 Porsches ran 1-2-3-4 in class holding down seventh, ninth, tenth and eleventh places outright.
The AGT class for Trans-Am cars always promised to be interesting and add some spice to the event. They qualified well, with the Sky blue Racing Ford Mustang in 19th, but didn't have the distance legs of the other classes. The best of them would be the Flis Motorsport Chevrolet Corvette driven by Craig Conway, Doug Goad, Michael Ciasulli and Andy Pilgrim in a distant 22nd, over 120 laps behind the winning Dallara. Corvettes would claim 1-2-3 in class but the three cars were spread over 170 laps as attrition dominated the American GT class.
Grand American Sports Car Series, Round 1, Rolex 24 At Daytona:
Daytona 500 Edges Closer
The Rainbow Warrior, Jeff Gordon, won his fifth title for Chevrolet last year, and backs up again looking as strong as ever. Where will the opposition come from? Names come from all corners of the category for potential race winners. Championship winners though will be harder to find.
The series will begin with the category's biggest race, the Daytona 500. Like most big American races, qualifying is a far from simple affair, beginning with the Bud Shootout on February 10th, then progressing into the twin 125-kilometre qualifying races, from which the Daytona 500 field is assembled prior to the signing of the National Anthem on February 17. No doubt this year's Daytona will be a poignant affair, hushed with overtones from the death at this event last year of Dale Earnhardt, and the tragedies that have befallen American society since.
It has the longest, hardest, toughest season of them all, and one thing it certainly won't be, is dull.
Also in CART news, another CART team has 'defected' to IRL. The Arciero-Blair team from 2001 will reform itself as Blair Racing with a Dallara chassis to chase the IRL crown. The team will take their CART driver from the end of last season, Alex Barron, to drive the car. Arciero-Blair also ran Max Wilson last year, who has since abandoned open wheelers for touring cars.
In other ALMS driver news, CART refugee Bryan Herta will join the Panoz squad. Herta will debut the team's new car for the 2002 season at the Sebring 12 hour, while team leaders Jan Magnussen and David Brabham drive the existing LMP Roadster. Johnny Herbert will race the Champion Audi R8 with Andy Wallace. Herbert will also race at Le Mans for the factory Audi outfit with Stefan Johansson expected to take his place in the Champion team for Le Mans.
Gabriele Rafanelli has announced his team will return to ALMS this year after 2001 was spent racing Ferraris in the FIA GT series. Rafanelli, who raced a Lola prototype in ALMS in 2000, will develop the Ferrari 550 Maranello to compete in the GTS class, currently the domain of Dodge Vipers, Saleen S7Rs and Chevrolet Corvettes. Former Formula One drivers Domenico Schiattarella and Emanuele Naspetti will drive the cars.
The controversial BMW M3 GTR has been removed out of the ALMS. BMW, unhappy with ALMS regulation changes, have pulled the factory Schnizter squad from the series and instead will race BMW 320i in the resurgent European Touring Car Championship as a factory team against teams from Alfa Romeo, Honda and Volvo. It is not yet known what BMW's second team PTG is planning. This is a turn around after BMW abandoned Super Touring three years ago to reallocate its efforts towards the Williams Formula One partnership. Dirk Muller, Jorg Muller and Fredrik Eklbom are expected to drive the Schnitzer cars, while the team's fourth driver JJ Lehto has joined the Cadillac Northstar programme.
Former 500cc world champion Alex Criville has ended his long career with Honda and will join Norick Abe in the Antenna 3 backed Yamaha team. The team has been assigned the existing two stroke YZR500 rather than the new four stroke bike being developed by the Marlboro Yamaha squad of Max Biaggi and Alex Barros.
Rally
At Monaco the tiny Peugeots were lost. Where power and wheelbase were required the Pugs came up short, literally. But Sweden has always been more of a Peugeots' kind of rally. And there is that awesomely impressive record of no non-Scandinavian having ever won the event. Right from the start, the form guide and the statistics seemed to point to one man for the WRC's annual excursion into the snow drifts. Marcus Gronholm did not disappoint.
Snow falling on the rally forced the cars onto studded tyres, probably for the only time this year, but warmer conditions on Sunday had the later stages damaging the studs, and in particular worried Colin McRae. It was not McRae's only wheel related problem, after losing three minutes on Stage 7 after shattering a wheel on a rock. McRae would finish seventh on the road, a poor result, and but for the generosity of young Ford privateer Janne Tuohino would have been out of the points. Tuohino finished fifth on the road but collected sufficient penalties on the final Leg to drop below McRae, giving both him and brother Alister an extra point. Carlos Sainz has started the year much like last year, consistently racking up points with consistent top five stage times throughout the rally.
Subaru had looked so good in Monaco. In Sweden you couldn't find them to see how they looked. Both Tommi Makinen and Petter Solberg were out before half distance. Makinen had engine failure after filling the front of the car with snow from a brush with a snow bank while acting as road sweeper in P1. Solberg had an engine failure in Stage 6 whilst in the points.
Pos Driver Car
1. Marcus Gronholm Peugeot 206
2. Harri Rovanpera Peugeot 206
3. Carlos Sainz Ford Focus
4. Richard Burns Peugeot 206
5. Alister McRae Mitsubishi Lancer
6. Colin McRae Ford Focus
7. Janne Tuohino Ford Focus
8. Juha Kankkunen Hyundai Accent
9. Sebastian Lindholm Peugeot 206
10. Duval Ford Focus
Sportscars
Doran Lista Racing had a very good Daytona. They'd taken one of the recently ex-ORECA Dallaras built for Chrysler's attempt on Le Mans and stuffed it full of Judd power and the best driver talent available. CART star Max Papis was the fastest in pre-event practice. Sportscar front runner Didier Theys took pole position. With assistance from former Sportscar World Champion, Mauro Baldi, Fredy Lienhard took the chequered flag after 716 laps of the combined Superspeedway and road course at Daytona International Speedway for a six lap victory over Jim Matthews Racing Riley & Scott. It was Doran Lista Racing's fourth victory on the Florida banking.
The first GTS car home was the Jaguar XKR from Rocketsports Racing, led by Paul Gentilozzi. They looked for a while as though they might follow in the footsteps of the previous two Daytonas where the prototypes dropped like flies to let a GTS car through to victory. But four of them did have nearly trouble-free runs, leaving the Jaguar in a still excellent fifth. The Larbre Competition Dodge Viper team were second in class in eighth outright with the Konrad Motorsport Saleen S7R third well down in 17th outright.
1. Theys/Lienhard/Papis/Baldi Dallara-Judd (SRP)
2. Smith/Matthews/Sharp/Gordon Riley & Scott-Elan (SRP)
3. Lazzaro/Rand/Borchellar/Kelleners Lola-Nissan (SRPII)
4. Wallace/Haywood/Maassen/Luhr Lola-Porsche (SRP)
5. Gentilozzi/Simo/ Pruett/Lauer Jaguar XKR (GTS)
6. Block/Knight/Hawkins/ DeVries Lola-Nissan (SRPII)
7. Buckler/Schrom/Bernhard/Bergmeister Porsche 996 GT3 (GT)
8. Bouchut/Chereau/Rosenblad/Goueslard Dodge Viper (GTS)
9. Schultheis/Kester/Tremblay/Wellman Porsche 996 GT3 (GT)
10. Dumas/Ortelli/Amorim/Fertl Porsche 996 GT3 (GT)
NASCAR
It's the biggest show in motorsport. 39 race days in a season, crowd figures rivaling a Formula One Grand Prix, and a fan base Jos Verstappen can only dream about. The one and only, NASCAR. Where team representing Chevrolet, Dodge, Ford and Pontiac do their best to carve each other up on the Superspeedways, Mile Ovals and even a couple of road circuits.
Briefs
It is expected Nordic Racing will announce its Formula 3000 line up to be occasional Prost F3000 racer Zsolt Baumgartner and Toyota Formula development driver Ryan Briscoe.
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Volume 8, Issue 6
Articles
The FIA's Court of Appeal: Part II
Button's Watershed Year
Off-Season Strokes
Columns
Elsewhere in Racing
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