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Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart is aiming to capitalise on its excellent start to the season as the 1999 FIA World Rally Championship moves into a decisive phase with the ninth round, the Rally of New Zealand. A strong team, consisting of a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution for Tommi Makinen and a Mitsubishi Carisma GT for Freddy Loix gives the team every chance of repeating its 1996 victory.
The most southerly rally in the World Championship, New Zealand offers a challenge most drivers relish, even though it is run in the middle of the Southern Hemisphere's winter and the weather is often atrocious. Heavy rain can make the stages extremely muddy, but no matter what the conditions, they are classic driver's roads, well surfaced and cambered, with a host of testing corners. Based in the centre of the country's largest city, Auckland, the rally uses a mixture of farm and forest roads in the lush, rolling countryside of North Island.
Although it is one of the few World Championship rallies he has yet to win, Tommi Makinen, co-driven by fellow Finn Risto Mannisenmaki, believes that it could easily provide his third victory of the season. So far this season Makinen has cemented his place at the top of the World Championship points table.
"I am sure it will be a very good rally for me. We had a good result last year, coming third in spite of some little problems, so I don't see any reason why we can't do very well," Makinen promised.
New Zealand will be a new experience for rising Belgian stars Freddy Loix and Sven Smeets in the Mitsubishi Carisma GT and Loix is looking forward to the challenge. Loix’s confidence was boosted on Sunday, June 27th with his first victory for Mitsubishi, a record-equalling fourth win on the most prestigious round of the European Rally Championship, the Ypres Westhoek Rally on home ground in Belgium.
"I am doing a lot of new rallies this year and it is all good experience. I felt I was gaining confidence with the Carisma on the Acropolis, Ypres rally and the more kilometres I do, the better the car feels," Loix said.
"One of the difficulties in New Zealand is the heavily cambered roads, which means you are waving wheels in the air in various places. It can unsettle the car a little bit, but we've done a useful test in Finland since our last rally and we're confident that the car will work well. Tommi says he likes the stages, he enjoys the event and is optimistic that we can win the championship again. There are rallies that are coming up that will certainly suit him, plus he's the only driver who's finished all the World Championship events, even if he score points on the Safari," declared Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart team manager Phil Short.
"Freddy will find things more difficult on this his first visit to New Zealand. However, his Acropolis performance and Ypres win suggest that he's starting to get his confidence back. Our feeling is that if he's happy with the car, even if he doesn't know the New Zealand stages, he can still get a good result. If he finishes in the points, we'll be very happy with that," Short added.
The rally is also the third round of the 1999 FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship, which is generally acknowledged as the most prestigious regional rally championship in the world. Mitsubishi has dominated the opening rounds this year and Japanese drivers hold the top two places. Yoshihiro Kataoka leads the series in his Group A Lancer Evolution and has an excellent chance of extending his points lead on roads that should suit his style. While Katsuhiko Taguchi not only holds second place, but is doing so in a Group N production category Lancer Evolution – a convincing demonstration of the showroom car’s capabilities.
Mitsubishis dominate the Group N entry list, and the Lancer Evolution is very much the car to beat. While the Kiwi drivers will be keen to take on the visitors, they not only have to beat Taguchi, but triple World Group N Champion Gustavo Trelles and Omani sensation Hamed Al-Wahaibi, his nearest challenger for the 1999 world crown. Both pilot Mitsubishi Lancer Evolutions.
The 1,680-kilometre rally begins on July 15 with a spectacular test at a specially constructed track at Manukau City on the outskirts of Auckland, which the cars tackle two at a time. The first leg continues with exceptionally twisty and demanding stages south of Auckland, close to the west coast around Raglan. There are just nine stages, but they total 142 kilometres. The second leg is the longest and probably the toughest, with 10 stages covering 174 kilometres in a compact series of loops north of Auckland. The last leg is the shortest, but a real sting in the tail. Although weary competitors must complete only 83 more kilometres of stages, they include the longest of the rally at 32 kilometres, before the ceremonial finish in Manukau at 15.30 local time.
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Copyright 1999 by Mitsubishi Motors Corporation.
