MITSUBISHI AIMS FOR SAFARI RALLY VICTORY WITH
LANCER EVOLUTION AND CARISMA GT

Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart goes to the Safari Rally, the third round of the 1999 FIA World Rally Championship, bidding for an extraordinary seventh consecutive victory with its team of Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution and Mitsubishi Carisma GT.

Mitsubishi won the Swedish Rally in mid-February, extending an unbeaten run it began last August, but winning the Safari is a daunting goal in spite of its recent successes. The Kenyan event is notoriously hard - the longest, fastest, hottest and roughest rally in the World Rally Championship - and it is perhaps the most difficult rally of all to win. It demands huge resources and Mitsubishi has sent no fewer than five rally cars to Nairobi to cover the event itself and testing. It is a Kenyan institution. Massive, wildly enthusiastic crowds follow the progress of the cars and the newspapers are dominated by rally news during the event.

World Rally Champions Tommi Makinen and Risto Mannisenmaki are understandably confident. The Finnish duo have won five of their last six events for Mitsubishi and they already have a handsome World Rally Championship lead in their Michelin-equipped Lancer Evolution. Makinen also scored a sensational Safari victory in 1996 and Mitsubishi won again in 1998.

"We have had an excellent start to the year, but it's still early in the season. Winning is never easy, especially on the Safari, but we will just try and do our best again.The car is of course very good and I think its record on the Safari shows that we can do well," said Makinen.

Belgian Carisma GT crew Freddy Loix and Sven Smeets are venturing into the unknown, because the Safari, like the Swedish Rally, is new to them. Gaining experience is thus their priority, but they know that they have a good chance on a rally where reliability is crucial.

The Safari is one of the most famous names in rallying and of course it is one of the rallies that any driver wants to win. But it's very easy to make a mistake in Kenya and I know from watching the rally that it will be very tough," Loix commented.

"Like our rivals, we are still finding out exactly what the rally has in store, because of last-minute route changes, but I'm sure it will be as tough as ever. Tommi has a very good record in Kenya and he is obviously capable of winning no matter what the conditions.It will be another baptism of fire for Freddy, but he has been to the Safari before and he is quite capable of coming up with a good result. There's a lot of good opposition and winning again certainly won't be easy, but we've proved in recent months that the car is tough and reliable, which is exactly what you need for the Safari," said Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart team manager Phil Short.

Mitsubishi will also be represented in the group N category. Major contenders in the production cars class will be Manfred Stohl from Austria and his co-driver Kay Gerlach from Germany, Luis Climent / Alex Romani from Spain - both driving Mitsubishi Carisma GTs while Hamed Al-Wahaibi from Oman and his co-driver Tony Sircombe from New Zealand will drive Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution.

The Safari is planned on a different scale to other World Championship rallies. Although it returns to the Kenyan capital Nairobi each night, it frequently covers as many kilometres in a day as other rallies manage in three and the route remains fluid until the last minute because of road conditions. Like other rallies, it is divided into three legs, starting on February 25 with a 2.42-kilometre superspecial in the outskirts of Nairobi. The next day, the first leg, totalling 783.04 km, continues with a loop south of the Kenyan capital across the plains around Kajiado. The second leg is the longest and most difficult, covering 1460.01 km to the north, crossing the Mau Escarpment, while the third and final leg, totalling 619.27 km, heads south once more.

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