RALLY NEWS NO.12                         Felindre - Service - Sunday 10.00 am

UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 16 Rhondda 1
1st (7) Petter Solberg/Phil Mills (Subaru) 3.05.26.1
2nd (18) Sebastien Loeb/Daniel Elena (Xsara WRC) 3.06.02.1
3rd (8) Tommi Makinen/Kaj Lindstrom (Subaru) 3.07.56.2
4th (17) Colin McRae/Derek Ringer (Xsara WRC) 3.08.04.7
5th (5) Francois Duval/Stephane Prevot (Focus WRC) 3.11.46.5
6th (2) Freddy Loix/Sven Smeets (206 WRC) 3.12.30.4
7th (34) Manfred Stohl/Ilka Minor (206 WRC) 3.13.20.9
8th (22) Roman Kresta/Jan Tomanek (206 WRC) 3.13.28.1
9th (24) Juuso Pykalisto/Risto Mannisenmaki (206 WRC) 3.14.12.3
10th (20) Jari-Matti Latvala/Mika Anttila (Focus WRC) 3.16.19.6

Just 3 stages on the agenda today, 2 runs through Rhondda and then the Margam Park test to finish off.  Petter Solberg had an overnight lead of just over 40 seconds, and on the first stage this morning was content to let Sebastien Loeb take 5s back.  The Subaru team radioed the split stage time through to Petter's co driver Phil Mills and he was able to advise Petter of the situation through the second half of the stage.  Loeb reported all well with his car, as did Solberg.  The drivers faced bits of low cloud and fog in the stage, difficult conditions.  There were 2 retirements from the front runners - Toni Gardemesiter's Skoda got stuck in a ditch at junction 10 and Harri Rovanpera's Peugeot ground to a halt close by as a result of transmission or driveshaft trouble. 

Tommi Makinen was 2s faster than Colin McRae, Tommi did try a small adjustment to the suspension for that opening stage to try to make the Subaru better in the damp conditions, but it wasn't really successful and he is going back to the set up he had previously.   Colin McRae was looking fairly dejected when he arrived in here to service, the Citroen team had emphasised once again to Colin on the way to the stage that he must think of the Manufacturers World Rally Championship. Try no heroics, which means Colin settling for 4th place.  Harri Rovanaper's retirement has brought Francois Duval into 5th place and if he can stick there it will be a nice result, bearing in mind that he has little or no experience of this rally.

Didier Auriol reported that he slowed slightly when he got the news of team mate Gardemeister being stuck, Didier saying "It is very important for me to finish now, for Skoda".  Freddy Loix was annoyed with himself for spinning his 206 in the fog, cost him almost 20s.    18 year old Jari-Matti Latvala put his sensible head on for the stage, and said "I try not to drive too fast in the fog, but not lose too much time."  It is pretty remarkable for an 18 year old to be into the top 10 of a World Championship Rally. Another young man with age on his side is Tobias Johansson, the 21 year old Swede, pushed "a little bit" in that stage this morning and has now got ahead of Antony Warmbold. Johansson's privately run Corolla WRC giving no problems.

In the Junior WRC Daniel Carlsson continues to lead, the Swedish driver saying "We had quite a lot of fog this is a tough battle with Meeke, no problems with the car".  Kris Meeke was 5s faster than his Suzuki rival, Kris' Corsa sounding pretty rough when it arrived here, the young Ulsterman reporting that the exhaust broke driving into the stage when he hit a large rock lying in the middle of the road. When Kris studied the times he said "Interesting, we lost 20s on one stage yesterday and now we are only 19.5s behind. But then if your granny had balls she'd be your grandad!"  Mirco Baldacci is 3rd in the JWRC. Interestingly, as regards the championship Tirabassi looks to be on course to win it, although he retired earlier when his Renault had mechanical problems. The only other driver who can take the title now is Salvador Canellas whose Suzuki is 5th in the category, but needs to finish 1st or 2nd.

In Group N Geoff Jones still leads by just over a minute from Gavin Cox with Nik Elsmore 3rd.  Some other placings include Jimmy McRae now up to 18th which is rather splendid. Eamonn Boland is 26th. Steve Perez is getting the hang of his Focus WRC and is now 27th .  Gwyndaf Evans still leads his class in the MG and Neil Burgess in the Mini is still going strong, albeit last.   Neil would like to thank the Ford team engineers who helped keep him  in the rally yesterday following his alternator/fan belt troubles. 42 cars are still running. Late news: Tommi Makinen has just been awarded the Immarsat Star of the Rally. More news later. BRIAN AND LIZ PATTERSON     www.rallynews.net