The Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart crew of Tommi Makinen and Risto Mannisenmaki lie in eighth position at the conclusion of the second leg of Rally New Zealand, the eighth round of the FIA World Rally Championship. In the interests of safety, the team has withdrawn Freddy Loix and Sven Smeets from the rally, having been unable to locate the problem associated with the car’s differentials. Mitsubishi Motors’ drivers have however fought back to brilliant effect to take the lead in the Group N production category. Austria’s Manfred Stohl gained the upper hand in his Mitsubishi Carisma GT, while Gustavo Trelles of Uruguay has also climbed the order to take third place in his Lancer Evolution.

Today’s nine special stages have taken the crews up north to the farmland around Maungaturoto and, while the weather remained fine and around 16 degrees this morning, grey clouds threatened and delivered rain later this afternoon. The spectators have nevertheless not been deterred and in fact, in quite an unique situation, a train has been operating between the service park - which is based at the station - and the special stages, ensuring the fans don’t miss any of the action on Rally New Zealand.

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

Mitsubishi’s four-times World Rally Champion was elevated into eighth position this morning, following the retirement of Peugeot’s overnight leader Francois Delecour. The Finn has pushed as hard as possible all day, but on-going suspension and transmission difficulties have hampered his charge. This, coupled with too hard a compound tyre when rain unexpectedly fell before the start of stage 13 has left the 1999 New Zealand rally winner unusually trailing in the wake of the leading pack and simply unable to attack. The team changed the gearbox in the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution at the final service this evening.
"We have been playing with the dampers, suspension and diffs, but they’re not working well all the time and sometimes we are losing the diffs completely", commented a disappointed Makinen. "It’s a hard time for us at the moment but we have one more day and can only hope other people have problems as well. It’s not been so easy and the stages have also been very slippery this afternoon".

Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart for safety reasons retired Freddy Loix and Sven Smeets from the rally before the final three stages. Having been unable to locate the problem associated with the differentials’ electronic software, the team was not prepared to put either the crew or spectators at risk.

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

"We have been trying for two days to get to the bottom of the problem and at this point we are still not sure what has been happening", commented Freddy. "It is obviously disappointing not to continue, but we were not in a position to fight for points and the most important thing is everyone’s safety".

Adding to his drivers’ comments, Andrew Cowan, team director said: "We have been having on-going technical problems with Freddy’s car that we have been unable to resolve. The very slippery conditions this afternoon occasionally made the car very unstable and in the interests of safety, for the crew and spectators, we decided to retire the car. We hope to be able to score some points here to keep us in the running, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult".

Group N World Championship leader Manfred Stohl was Mitsubishi’s pacesetter for most of the leg, taking the battle to the Subaru drivers and blasting into the lead in confident style as Cody Crocker ran into tyre problems and Hamed Al Wahaibi blew his Subaru’s turbo.

"Today has been very difficult with the weather changing and you must always be careful on these fast roads. It has been a big fight, but at the moment I am very happy," Stohl commented.

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution Gr.N G. Trelles / J. del Buono