Event Bulletin
7 February 2003
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 Swedish Rally 7 to 9 February 2003 |
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Itinerary | |
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Leg1 Report | ||
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| PCWRC 2003 | |||
| Production Car World Rally Championship |
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Leg1 Report
Event Bulletin
7 February 2003 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Starters75 competitors left Karlstadt parc ferme at 0600hrs this morning Route 125.79 competitive kilometres, contested over six stages based around a service area in the town of Hagfors, 90 kilometres north of Karlstadt Weather Following an overcast morning, which saw light snowfall and temperatures of around -8 degrees, temperatures rose to 0 degrees in the afternoon. Stages were mostly ice, with some light snowfall Stage Reports After an impressive performance at the wheel of his Subaru Impreza WRC2003, Tommi Mäkinen of the 555 Subaru World Rally Team holds overnight second place, 27 seconds behind overnight leader Marcus Gronholm. His team-mate Petter Solberg is in eighth place. SS1 0835hrs Sågen 1 (14.17km) Despite concerns of the front-runners being slowed as they swept the roads of loose snow, a fresh dusting on the 14km S&anng;gen test this morning did little to hinder first-on-the-road Sebastian Loeb who charged through to take the fastest time. His Citroen team-mates, Colin McRae and Carlos Sainz, running second and third respectively, were not as quick and finished fifth and eighth fastest. Just over one second separated the top three. Richard Burns finished the 14km run 0.6 seconds slower than Loeb to take second, with his Peugeot team-mate Marcus Gronholm finishing a further 0.5 seconds behind in third. Running thirteenth on the road on Pirelli ice tread tyres, three-times Sweden Rally winner Tommi Mäkinen was fourth fastest while 555 Subaru team mate Petter Solberg was 13th. Fastest Time: Loeb (Citroen) 7:25.6 SS2 0927hrs Rämmen 1 (23.16km) Problems in the snow for Citroen driver Colin McRae on SS2, which took crews through forest roads near Lake Holmsjön. The Scot spun his Xsara on the first corner and hit a snow bank, partially blocking the car's air filter with snow. The resulting lack of power cost him around 50 seconds. Last year's winner Marcus Gronholm was fastest. At an average speed of 110kph, the Finn pulled 8.1 seconds ahead of the rest of the field to take the overall lead. Peugeot team-mates Rovanpera and Burns were second and third. This time, running first proved to be problematic for Sebastian Loeb. With more snow on the road than on SS1, Loeb found himself acting as a plough for the rest of the cars and was only 16th fastest. Tommi Mäkinen continued his excellent run and finished fourth, 9.9 seconds behind Gronholm. Fastest Time: Gronholm (Peugeot) 12:05.5 SS3 1155hrs Granberget 1 (43.69km) After promising in Service B that he would push harder on SS3, Mäkinen did exactly that through Granberget, the longest and highest stage of the rally. Running thirteenth over the stage's icy surface in light falling snow and despite contending with a tyre vibration 20km from the start and a stall near the finish, the Finn finished second fastest, 8.3 seconds behind the stage winner Marcus Gronholm. The Subaru star's charge was enough to move him to second place overall and relegate Peugeot's Richard Burns and Harri Rovanpera to third and fourth respectively. Petter Solberg was eighth fastest in his Subaru Impreza WRC, just behind the Hyundai of Freddy Loix. Loeb continued to struggle and finished over a minute behind the leaders. At the end of the test, crews made their way back to Hagfors for the third scheduled service of the day. Fastest Time: Gronholm (Peugeot) 21:43.9 
SS4 1428hrs Malta (11.25km)In a repeat performance of last year's run through the short Malta stage, Marcus Gronholm was fastest, and cruised through to score his third successive stage win and increase his overall lead to 26.3 seconds. Hot-on-his-heels however, was the blue Subaru of Tommi Mäkinen. Revelling in the mixture of fast, long straights and ninety-degree corners through the Swedish forests, the four-times World Champion finished second quickest to extend his lead over Richard Burns to 5.4 seconds. Rovanpera was third fastest, followed by Richard Burns and a rejuvenated Petter Solberg in fifth. The popular Norwegian finished joint fifth with Carlos Sainz, who was the fastest of all the Citroen drivers after team-mate Colin McRae lost time following another meeting with a snow bank near the finish. Fastest Time: Gronholm (Peugeot) 5:39.1 SS5 1525hrs Brunnberg 1 (11.25km) Disaster for Ford's Francois Duval who was running sixth on the road. The young Belgian crashed 3km from the finish, broke the suspension on both front corners of his Focus and blocked the stage. As only five cars completed the stage before the incident, FIA stewards cancelled all the results of the stage. Fastest Time: n/a SS6 1626hrs Hagfors Sprint 1 (1.86km) Following the dramas of the previous stage, the final test of the day, the short sprint around the Hagfors sports stadium brought no major problems. Richard Burns posted the fastest time followed by Markko Martin and Carlos Sainz in third. The hundreds of spectators who had braved the chilly weather conditions to see their favourite drivers in action weren't disappointed. Just 2.2 seconds separated the top ten fastest times, which included Tommi Mäkinen who was sixth. His team-mate Petter Solberg was twelfth. Fastest Time: Burns (Peugeot) 1:58.0 Team Quotes David Lapworth, 555 Subaru World Rally Team Principal I'm very happy with where Tommi has ended the day, and he's now in a great position to keep Marcus under pressure. Tommi loves to be in a fight and he is relishing the challenge ahead. Both cars have run well today, Tommi found a nice rhythm where he didn't need to push too hard or take risks, but it hasn't been so easy for Petter. He's recovering from the 'flu and when he came down to breakfast this morning, he was looking a bit off-colour. We've spoken with the engineers tonight and will try a set up on his car that is similar to Tommi's and see if that gives him the edge that he's looking for. 
Tommi MäkinenIt's been a good day for me, no problems. We have had some small things to deal with, but overall I'm very, very happy. The new car has behaved well and we've been able to stay right with the leaders. Tomorrow, I'm going to be looking for little things to improve the speed and we'll see what we can do. This year, the roads are very good. I think it's much faster than last year and I'm enjoying my driving. Petter Solberg I'm a bit frustrated. It's a mystery to me, but I just don't seem to have the speed today. The car and tyres feel good on the stages but the times just aren't reflecting that. It seems no matter what I do, there's something missing. We'll be making some changes tonight to make the set-up more like Tommi's, and hopefully that will improve things tomorrow. |
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Tomorrow's Leg Starts at 0530hrs, when competitors will leave Karlstadt and travel back to Hagfors for the first service of the day. A further 140.37 competitive kilometres comprising six stages lie ahead, with the first test, a second run through the long Granberget stage, starting at 0818hrs. The day will conclude with a final run around the short Hagfors Sprint circuit, before the final service at 1640hrs. |
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