MITSUBISHI MOTORS/1999 WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP

Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart has high hopes of winning its sixth consecutive round of the World Rally Championship as it makes final preparations for the Swedish Rally, the second encounter of the 1999 season. Triple World Champion Tommi Makinen spearheads the team in his Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution and is supported by Belgium’s Freddy Loix in a Mitsubishi Carisma GT.

It promises to be an exceptionally demanding rally, with temperatures consistently -10 degrees Celsius. There is little snow in the Karlstad area of central Sweden and the country’s most popular sports event looks certain to be fought out at ultra-high speeds on ice and gravel. Sweden poses a tough challenge for the tyre suppliers-Michelin, as the all-important studs will wear out quickly. Light snow is forecast for the start of the rally.

Double Swedish winner Makinen and fellow Finn Risto Mannisenmaki are raring to go, thrilled with the Lancer’s performance in testing and confident of extending their World Rally Championship lead.

"Conditions are nice – the roads are quite smooth. I have marked all the snow-banks carefully too, because you can gain 20 km/h on each corner if you use them in the right way!" said Makinen.

Swedish novice Loix, co-driven by Sven Smeets, covered useful kilometres at the shakedown adapting to unfamiliar conditions on only his second rally with Mitsubishi.

"The Carisma and the Michelin tyres are very good, but I know I still have to learn about this rally. The most important thing is to finish," Loix said.

"Testing at the shakedown was very good. It confirmed our earlier test results and we didn’t have to change anything. Tommi was delighted," reported Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart team manager Phil Short. "We’ve just told Freddy to relax and not worry about his position. Although the ground is frozen, there is quite a lot of gravel, so it’s going to be tricky."

Mitsubishi drivers are set to dominate in the Group N production category, in which the Lancer Evolution and the Carisma GT are the cars to beat. Swedes naturally have a fine record at home but, while Stig-Olov Walfridson is the favourite. He faces stern opposition from the likes of triple World Rally Champion Gustavo Trelles, Austria’s Manfred Stohl, Spaniard Luis Climent (who contested Finland’s Arctic Rally for snow practice) and Oman’s Hamed Al-Wahaibi, who is tackling snow for the first time, but reckons that it gives more grip than sand.

The three-day, 1478-kilometre rally begins in Karlstad on Friday morning. Competitors face eight stages, totalling 142 kilometres, in a compact loop that takes them close to the Norwegian border.