Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart drivers Tommi Makinen and Freddy Loix have endured a difficult opening leg of Rally New Zealand, the eighth round of the 2000 FIA World Rally Championship. After 177.43 competitive kilometres they lie in ninth and 16th positions respectively and are looking for a significant about-turn in fortune during Saturday’s second day of competition. At the head of the leaderboard, Frenchman Francois Delecour leads for Peugeot with ’junior’ member of the Ford team, Petter Solberg, second overall. However, Mitsubishi Motors’ drivers fill most of the leading positions in the Group N production car class, with Austrian Manfred Stohl in a fine second place in his Mitsubishi Carisma GT, and New Zealanders Reece Jones, and Ralliart driver Chris West well in contention in similar machines.

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart T. Makinen / R. Mannisenmaki

After a spectacular opening ceremony in Auckland, North Island’s largest city, last night, the seventy-seven competing crews were greeted with clear skies and 10 degree temperatures this morning as they headed south for the first eight special stages. The dry weather has also encouraged spectators to flock to the stages in their thousands, many camped out at 05:00 hrs this morning, three hours before the start of the first stage, to secure the best vantage points from which to witness the world’s greatest drivers in action.

Tommi Makinen, co-driven by Risto Mannisenmaki, experienced difficulties from the outset; a lack of grip hampering his charge in the opening stage before transmission and suspension problems resulted in inconsistent handling and oversteer. The Finn, who won this event so convincingly in the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution last year, will however continue to push hard to claw back valuable time.

Mitsubishi Carisma GT Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart F. Loix / S. Smeets

"Today has been a very frustrating day", commented Tommi. "We still need to work on the suspension because, for some reason, it has not been using its full length of travel. Now we are looking at going back to some springs and set-ups we used so successfully last year. The team is working hard to sort things out for us, but we have a lot of time to make up".

Team-mates Freddy Loix and Sven Smeets have fared little better, the Belgians suffering a number of spins due to transmission related problems. The Mitsubishi Carisma GT crew, who are competing for only the second time in New Zealand, are however confident their engineers can rectify what appears to be a differential electronic software problem.

Mitsubishi Carisma GT Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart F. Loix / S. Smeets

"The car has been a lot better over the last couple of stages, but there is still an intermittent fault", said Freddy. "It is not the hardware as this has already been changed, so the engineers are looking at all the software to see what we can do. Tomorrow is another day and we will start again with new enthusiasm".

Mitsubishi drivers have won Group N on all seven rounds of the World Championship so far this year and World Championship leader Manfred Stohl is well placed in second position after the first leg. However, he admits that he has a fight on his hands with Australian Subaru driver Cody Crocker, who holds a narrow lead.

"We have to drive quickly but safely and that is not easy in these conditions, because there is a lot of gravel. I think we can go quicker tomorrow. It would be good to win here," Stohl commented.

Mitsubishi Carisma GT Gr.N M. Stohl / P. Muller