Makinen retires from home rally

Tommi Makinen will not win the Rally Finland for a sixth consecutive season. He retired with gearbox failure on SS14, the longest stage of the event.

The Finn had closed to within 8s of the rally lead despite only being in 5th place.

Juha Kankkunen was fastest on the stage and his lead now looks more secure, especially after Carlos Sainz lost time with a spin. He only 2nd, but is only 0.5s ahead of Richard Burns, who was slowed by a left front puncture in the stage.

Sainz's Toyota team-mate Didier Auriol is having a rally to forget. With Makinen out, he has a golden opportunity to make up some ground in the title race, but lost yet more time on SS14 when he clouted a large rock. The extent of the damage is unknown, but he made it to the end of the stage.

Problems for others have promoted Colin McRae to 5th position. His team-mate Thomas Radstrom faces a trying third leg however, costing himself a top ten place when he crashed after an awkward landing on a 'yump'.

The second Ford Focus limped to the end of the stage but lost twelve minutes.

Francois Delecour lost another three minutes as the differential problems on his Peugeot became worse.

One of the other relative newcomers to the WRC, SEAT, also had a trying stage. Harri Rovanpera lost around 30s with a puncture while Toni Gardemeister had his second spin of the day.

The latter is putting in some very fast times but is tending to waste them by going off the road immediately afterwards.


Full report and rally leaderboard to follow.

Stages times so far:

Kankkunen- 16m26.2s

Burns- 16m31.1s

Gronholm- 16m32.5s

Sainz- 16m34.3s

McRae- 16m51.6s

Gardemeister- 16m57.0s

Rovanpera- 17m01.5

Lindholm- 17m11.7s

Auriol 17m16.0s

Delecour- 19m43.2s

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