Supersub Katajamäki does it againSome said Mitsubishi would be in the wilderness this year after the departure of superstar driver Tommi Mäkinen to Subaru - but the Scottish duo of McRae and Katajamäki proved everyone wrong this weekend - slaying the so far dominant Fords in New Zealand.
It was the other McRae that was leading to start with, older brother Colin setting the pace in one of the environments he seems to thrive in - however Katajamäki surprised many by translating his expected tarmac pace into genuine speed on gravel - he was 2nd quickest on the opening test and won the second stage, but McRae just had the edge over his younger compatriot. Championship leader Mäkinen was looking to stregthen his title challenge, but instead crashed out during the opening day and into retirement.
While day one saw the two Scots locked together in a battle for the lead, the start of the second day saw the duel came to and end. McRae - under pressure from the hard charging Katajamäki behind, ran wide into a ditch during the opening stage, which dropped him well over a minute behind the leaders. This meant Grönholm was now Katajamäki's closest rival, only 6 seconds behind, and Markko Märtin a further 2 seconds back.
The Waiphu Gorge rerun saw little change in the leaderboard, the gaps remaining almost exactly the same by the end of the day. The final day would decide the fate of the rally, and anyone in the Top 6 was in a position to win - perhaps even the hard charging McRae, who had made back much of the time he lost at the beginning of the day by winning every other stage.
So, for the second time in a row, we had a final day showdown. However this one was settled in one quick swoop instead of the last stage thriller in France. It was a short end to the rally - there would only be three stages.
In fact the first two were two different versions of the same stage - the second in reverse but taking a partially revised route. After doing the recce for the stage, Katajamäki had marked out Parahi as a stage where he could possibly take some time out of everyone. He wasn't wrong...
With only 6 seconds of time in hand, there was a fine line between immense speed and making sure he didn't throw his Mitsubishi Lancer off the road - and Katajamäki decided to play chicken with it. He went over jumps at full speed, landing on one or two wheels sometimes, aggressively cut corners and smashed through a couple of fences to avoid other corners but some minor cooling damage aside it paid off hugely.
The result at the end of Parahi 1 was a 14 second stage win over his team-mate Alister McRae. The stage really seemed to suit the Mitsubishis, and it was the beginning of a massive surge up the leaderboard for the younger McRae. As for the older McRae - he was also looking fast to begin with, but yet another accident dropped him even more time, and down to 9th behind Armin Schwarz's Hyundai.
The re-run through Parahi was more of the same - Katajamäki took a more cautious approach to the stage, making sure he made no mistakes at all, and still managed to take over 5 seconds out of everyone. As a result Alister McRae had leapt up to fourth - finally giving them a fighting chance against the tree Fords in the manufacturers points. It also spelled the end for an impressive run by Petter Solberg - he also had an impressive run through Parahi 1, and had moved up to second ahead of Gronholm and Sainz - however a crash midway through the stage ended Subaru's hopes for any points this weekend.
The superspecial was merely a formality for Katajamäki, who cruised round to seal his second win in a row, maintaining an incredible 100% win record; a feat unheard of in the WRC.
However all eyes were on the championship battle raging on for 2nd place - a showdown between Grönholm and Sainz. Katajamäki and McRae had been paired up instead giving Ralliart something of a ceremonial finish to the event, so two former champions could go head to head for vital championship points. Grönholm drove his socks off to set the fastest time around the Superspecial stage, however Sainz had
just done enough to hang on to the middle step of the podium, by a tiny two tenths of a second.
Katajamäki seemed as stunned as everyone else that he had won here - on what was expected to be the weaker of the two rallies he was scheduled to drive for Mitsubishi.
I think the first run through Parahi is the best I've driven in my entire life. If I could translate that stage into, say, a lap of Spa-Francorchamps, I probably could have won back in 1998! It's not even that long a stage, so to take 14 seconds out of everyone - and most importantly 18 out of Gronholm, is quite unbelieveable...
With Alister's 4th place, it's given Mitsubishi a big haul of manufacturer points. They don't really have a chance to beat Ford or Peugeot, because they have an extra points scoring car, but these are valuable points against Subaru.
Amazingly this result means Katajamäki now leads the drivers championship - ahead of Sainz by virtue of winning two rallies compared to the Spaniard's zero. However the half Scot half Finn was quick to play down any speculation of replacing Panizzi at Peugeot or Delecour at Mitsubishi.
My work at Mitsubishi is done. Francois [Delecour] is almost fully recovered now so he will be back for Cyprus in a few weeks, so there is no chance I will replace him again. I don't know about Mr Panizzi, but the team has not mentioned promoting me to the WRC squad in his place at all, so that is also not true. This was a one off, and I am a Peugeot driver so I will stay with their programme - which is in the JWRC right now.
It would not be possible to do the rest of the season anyway - I am already commited to the DTM and V8 Supercars, so with date clashes and so on it would be impossible to fulful all my contract requirements. I intend to race in both series so there is no chance of me competing full time this year. As for next year, I am not discussing that with any team right now, it is too early in the year to be considering that.
Final ResultsCode: Select all
Pos Driver Team Time
1. Alex Katajamäki MITSUBISHI RALLIART 16:19.44
2. Carlos Sainz FORD WORLD RALLY TEAM 16:46.27
3. Marcus Grönholm PEUGEOT SPORT 16.46.50
4. Alister McRae MITSUBISHI RALLIART 16.55.76
5. Harri Rovanperä PEUGEOT SPORT 17:20.31
6. Markko Märtin FORD WORLD RALLY TEAM 17.39:32
7. Possum Bourne PRODRIVE SUBARU RALLY 17:46.22
8. Colin McRae FORD WORLD RALLY TEAM 17:51.54
Drivers ChampionshipCode: Select all
Pos Driver Team Points
1. Alex Katajämaki MITSUBISHI RALLIART 20
2. Carlos Sainz FORD WORLD RALLY TEAM 20
3. Marcus Grönholm PEUGEOT SPORT 17
4. Tommi Mäkinen SUBARU WORLD RALLY TEAM 14
5. Colin McRae FORD WORLD RALLY TEAM 8
=. Harri Rovanperä PEUGEOT SPORT 8
7. Alister McRae MITSUBISHI RALLIART 6
8. Petter Solberg SUBARU WORLD RALLY TEAM 3
9. Sebastian Lindholm DHL PEUGEOT 1
=. Markko Märtin FORD WORLD RALLY TEAM 1