MITSUBISHI GEARED UP FOR TOUR OF CORSICA

Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart is aiming for its first victory on the Tour of Corsica, the sixth round of the 1999 FIA World Rally Championship and has every chance of success with a strong team, consisting of triple World Rally Champion Tommi Makinen in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution and Belgium's rising star Freddy Loix in a Mitsubishi Carisma GT.

Tour de Corse is the second leg of a hectic period in the World Rally Championship calendar, following just two weeks after the season's first pure tarmac rally in Catalunya. Corsica is renowned as one of the toughest rallies in the World Rally Championship. The roads of the picturesque Mediterranean island are notoriously twisty and often bumpy, which not only makes them a tough test of a car, but very difficult to learn for the drivers. It is so difficult for outsiders to succeed that it has been won by only five non-French drivers in over 40 years.

Tommi Makinen, co-driven by fellow Finn Risto Mannisenmaki, put in a strong showing in 1998 and the World Championship leader has a good chance of becoming one of the few Finns to have won the rally.

"This is already turning into a really tough season, but Catalunya was good, because we found some things that improve the car's suspension and I believe that we should be very competitive in Corsica," said Makinen.

Freddy Loix and Sven Smeets have little experience of the event, Loix having contested it just once, in 1995, but the Belgian crew are a formidable combination on asphalt and Loix believes that he can improve on his showing in Catalunya as he regains fitness after his Safari accident.

"The Catalunya Rally helped me a lot in preparing for Corsica. There is no time to do a big test, but if I can do a good shakedown test.we could go well there," said Loix.

"Although it is held on tarmac, like the Catalunya Rally, Corsica is quite different. It is much more mountainous and prone to changes in the weather. The roads are much more bumpy, so our suspension settings are very different. Every rally has its unique flavour. Corsica is more demanding than Catalunya in that it punishes a mistake more severely: if you go off the road there tends to be a rock face on one side and drop on the other," warned Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart team manager Phil Short.

"We have had our problems there in the past, but last year's rally was very encouraging and our testing for this year's rally indicates that we should be competitive. It could be quite difficult for Freddy, because his knowledge of Corsica is not great and it's impossible to learn in one recce, but he is quite capable of scoring useful championship points" he added.

Mitsubishi is also strongly represented in the Group N production category. Triple World Group N Rally Champion Gustavo Trelles from Uruguay is perhaps the favourite, but he has to beat fierce opposition from an array of drivers who have placed their confidence in the Lancer Evolution or the Carisma GT. Recent winner in Spain on his first attempt on tarmac, Oman's Hamed Al-Wahaibi, is confident that he can repeat his success.

The rally covers 1,077 kilometres, with 17 special stages totalling 373 kilometres. The first leg is perhaps the toughest, with just six stages, but 139 kilometres of flat-out driving, south-east of the island capital, Ajaccio. The second leg takes crews high into the mountains of central and northern Corsica, with another seven stages covering 125 kilometres, including the longest of the rally at 33 kilometres. The third and final leg is similar to the first leg, concentrated around Propriano and Aullene, with 109 kilometres of stages divided into five separate tests, concluding with a 13.8-kilometre stage screened live on television. For the first time in World Championship history, extra points will be awarded for the best times on that stage alone (1st-3points, 2nd-2points, and 3rd-1point).

ITINERARY